The Ways They Said It
by sinceyoufellinlovewithme
Summary: Cobert drabble/one-shot collection based off a Tumblr post of 100 ways to say I love you. Rating may go up.
1. Go back to sleep

AN: This was going to be a drabble collection, but "drabble" means 500 words or fewer, and I tend to be wordy, so let's call it a drabble/one-shot collection. :-) It's based off a Tumblr post from GranthamGal (thanks for sharing!) of 100 ways to say I love you. I'm going to take one sentence at a time and write a Cobert drabble/one-shot from it. Probably won't do the full list, b/c 100 is a TON. But this is #41, "Go back to sleep."

* * *

At the noise of the rain on the walls and windows, Robert stirred and moved to roll over, reaching out to cuddle closer to Cora as he did so. And yet his arm met nothing more than air and cold sheets.

"Cora?" He blinked and sat up. There was no light under the washroom door…

"I'm here," her voice said quietly, and his eyes slowly focused on a thin form in a white nightdress by the window.

"What are you doing?"

She did not answer him, and he realized as his vision adjusted to the dark bedroom that her shoulders were slumped, her forehead pressed against the pane.

He hesitated, recognizing the sorrow in her posture but unsure what to do about it. He had come, after a year of shameful disregard, to love his young wife with an intensity that shook him, yet her emotions often felt like an uncharted wilderness to him. Did she want him to get up and go to her? Or was it a private moment of homesickness that he was meant to have slept through, and did she want him to roll over and pretend he'd seen nothing?

He compromised by remaining in bed, but softly asking, "Cora? Will you tell me what's wrong?"

She did not answer this either, and after a moment he took that as his signal to leave her be. But then, as he lay back down, he heard her murmur, her voice quiet with embarrassment, "I've gotten my monthly."

Well, that was the last thing he'd expected—or wanted—to hear. He was thankful it was dark and that he was looking at her back instead of her face, as he knew his own was now bright red. As much as he delighted in her very feminine body, the practical end of being female made him quite squeamish. It also made him nervous, for it was at these times that Cora was at her most difficult to understand, with feelings that seemed to swing wildly and irrationally.

"I see," he said, although he didn't really. He did not doubt the whole business was a messy hassle for her, and he knew she sometimes found it painful—he recognized suddenly that her hand was pressed against her stomach—but he could not fathom why it would make her sad and leave her standing alone by the window on a rainy night. But then she spoke again.

"It should have happened three days ago," she said quietly. "But when I was late, I thought…I thought this was finally it, you know? But I was wrong. I'm always wrong."

 _Oh._ So _that_ was it. Robert could hear unshed tears straining her voice, and he longed to hold her but was fearful to get up and take her in his arms without some sort of signal that she wanted that.

"I don't think there's ever going to be a baby," she went on. "I think your mother's right. I'm _defective_ in some way."

"There is nothing defective about you," he said firmly. "Sometimes it takes awhile." In truth he was concerned, too, that there had not been a pregnancy in all this time, but he tried to remind himself that he knew of other couples whose first child had been born a good two years after the wedding.

She sniffed in reply.

"Come back to bed, sweetheart. It's cold by the window."

"I can't, Robert."

"Why not?"

She was silent for a moment. "I've…bled there."

"Ah." Before he could stop himself, he had glanced to his right: even in the darkness, he could see two dark splotches on the sheet where she had lain, and he felt a queasy sensation in his stomach at the sight.

"And that's the worst of it," she said, suddenly overcoming her mortification enough to tell him more. "Your mother will know."

"My mother?" What on earth did blood in her bed have to do with his mother?

"Yes, she gets the housemaids to tell her when they find the blood on my sheets, and then she knows I've gone another month and I'm still not pregnant, and then she'll take me aside and mention it, and— _God,_ it's _humiliating_. I haven't even got privacy in my own _bedroom_." She said all this very quickly.

Her report angered him, but it did not surprise him, and he was quite used to working around his mother. "You trust your lady's maid, don't you?" She'd come from America with Cora, and Robert doubted she was easily bought.

"Yes, but it's the housemaids that handle the linens—"

"Not in your room anymore. O'Malley will have exclusive charge of the bedding; we'll add to her wages for the extra work if we need to. And the others can be told that it's my express order."

Cora gave a slight nod and then turned to face him. "Thank you," she whispered, wiping her eyes. She paused. "Do you think I should call her now?"

"No," he said, moving to rise. Now that she was facing him, he could see she was in pain from the way she seemed to curl slightly around her stomach, and this combined with the tear tracks shimmering on her face to make him want nothing more than for her to lie down immediately. He did not want to wait for her maid to hear the bell, rouse herself from sleep, dress, and make her way upstairs and then strip and remake the bed.

He went into the washroom, took two heavy towels from the shelf, and then sat back down on his side of the bed.

"Robert, what are you doing?" she asked softly.

"I wanted you to be able to get back in bed," he said in explanation as he spread the towels across the dark spots on the sheet. "Will this be all right?"

"Oh…yes, thank you. That's fine."

She climbed in and lay down as Robert drew the covers over her. "I'm sorry," she whispered, snuggling closer to him as he took her in his arms. "I didn't mean to—"

"Shh," he said. He pressed a light kiss to her forehead. "Don't be sorry. Just go back to sleep."


	2. I like your laugh

"What an interesting opportunity this is for you, Lady Grantham," the Countess of Rosslyn said. "I must say I think you're making progress."

"Progress with what?" Cora's mother-in-law raised her eyebrows as she reached for another scone.

"Why, all this business with Lady Downton!" Lady Rosslyn chuckled. "When I heard your son was taking a foreign wife, I couldn't have been more worried for you. But I think you're managing quite well. This young woman has become quite the lady since I last saw her at the wedding. Haven't you, my dear?" She smiled indulgently at Cora.

Cora took another sip of tea, an excuse to lower her eyes as she drank, and tried to focus on the warmth of the liquid instead of the burning in her cheeks. She was so tired of Robert's mother parading her in front of her aristocratic friends so that they could giggle together at the oddities of "the American," as Violet often called her. And this was not the first time she had been spoken to as though her nationality made her mentally deficient.

"There's work still to be done," Violet said in a long-suffering tone. She looked pointedly at her daughter-in-law's hand, and Cora felt her face turn crimson. She realized with dread that she was holding her fingers in the American fashion around her teacup.

"Oh," she murmured, adjusting them quickly. Lady Rosslyn laughed, and Cora fought an urge to fling the remainder of her tea at the old bat.

"Ah, Robert!" Violet called out. Cora looked back over her shoulder to see her husband enter the library. He smiled at her in that way that still made her heart flutter, even after all these months with no hint that he felt anything more than vague affection.

"How lovely to see you, Lord Downton." Lady Rosslyn nodded to him.

He smiled at the countess. "Lady Rosslyn. Don't mind me, ladies—I think I left something in here earlier."

Robert moved toward the desk and began to flip through a pile of papers. But his presence reminded Cora of their conversation last week, when she had confided in him how much she hated the way his mother's friends smirked and laughed in her face.

"It's like they see me as some sort of exotic animal—a ridiculous baboon!" she'd exclaimed.

"And do you find nothing ridiculous about them?" he'd asked. "They've got the manners of pigs, of course, but…" He'd grinned sheepishly. "For instance, my mother's cousin Agatha—I think you met her a couple weeks ago—I'd always thought there was something very… _froggish_ about her face."

There was, she'd had to concede, with a soft giggle of her own.

And now she was regarding Lady Rosslyn, who was nibbling on a scone. Nibbling, rather like a squirrel, with small, greedy little eyes. The older woman was holding it with both hands, and its light brown color looked so like a nut, and… Cora bit her lip, trying to hold back her laughter.

It was most unfortunate that Lady Rosslyn chose that moment to remark, "The trees along your drive really were looking lovely on the way up, Lady Grantham."

 _Of course a squirrel would like the trees,_ Cora thought immediately, and a peal of laughter escaped her.

"Cora?" Violet looked at her, alarmed.

But it was as though a dam had burst with her first laugh, and she could not hold the rest of it back, and she was soon nearly breathless with her laughter.

"Cora, stop this at once!" Her mother-in-law had no idea what was so funny, but the joke itself was utterly irrelevant. It was quickly becoming irrelevant to Cora, too, for the forbidden laughter was beginning to feel so delicious that she didn't think she ever wanted it to end. "Stop this! I insist you… _excuse yourself_ until you can exercise some self-control!"

Cora nodded and hurried from the room, far too tickled to be a bit sorry.

* * *

And yet it was not funny later, not when she was cornered in her bedroom immediately after Lady Rosslyn's departure by an irate Violet, who ranted on and on and on about her impropriety and her rudeness and how she'd made herself look absolutely daft and how Lady Rosslyn must think them all absolutely mad for taking her on and how even an American ought to know better and how she could not fathom how Cora ever imagined she'd make a suitable countess when she could not comport herself at a simple tea party, for heaven's sake.

It was the last bit of this lecture—always included at the end of _any_ of Violet's lectures, and implicit in most of her mother-in-law's conversations—that jabbed right at the center of Cora's insecurities. For in truth, she did _not_ imagine that she'd make a suitable countess at all.

"Cora?"

She whirled around to see Robert standing in the doorway, wearing the guilty expression he often did when he knew his mother had given her another dressing down.

"What is it, Robert?" she snapped. She was teetering between bursting into tears or throwing a vase across the room in anger, and it was less painful to slide toward the latter. "I suppose you've come up here to tell me how uncouth you find me as well? How horrifying it is that you've married some stupid American who can't make it through an afternoon tea without…without howling like some kind of _hyena_?" At the mention of an animal, realization dawned in his eyes, but she ignored it. "God forbid we notice anyone else being rude! God forbid anyone bat an eye at the way all these women laugh at _me_!" He was slowly approaching her, but she did not pause. "Have you come to berate me, then? Tell me I won't make a suitable countess, or how foolish you were to marry me? Or…or…"

He had come to stand right next to her—as close as he could without touching her—and she felt some of the fire go out of her argument.

"No," he said softly, leaning in to kiss her cheek. "That's not what I came to tell you. I came to tell you…that I like your laugh."


	3. I made you your favorite

AN: Prompt for this one was "I made you your favorite," but I altered that slightly, because I couldn't imagine Robert trying to make anything himself, at least not with any success. (Although I did read a wonderfully entertaining fic once, can't remember whose, in which Robert attempts to make Cora breakfast for their anniversary, and it's an absolute disaster.)

* * *

Cora awoke at the sound of the dressing gown and moved, gingerly and slowly, to sit up, groaning slightly at the effort required. If her belly was this size at seven months, she simply couldn't imagine how big she'd be at the end of her pregnancy.

Yet she felt a great deal better after a couple hours' rest than she had earlier. Sleep had refreshed her, and the throbbing in her lower back had eased to a dull twinge.

Cora sighed. Her maid would be here soon, and she'd have to get up and be dressed and go back down for dinner. After this afternoon, she had no desire to see Robert again so soon, and she toyed with begging off and going back to sleep, but the rumbling in her stomach quickly disabused her of that idea. The last thing she'd wanted to do for months now was skip a meal.

It was not that she was angry with Robert, not in the least. Rather, now that she felt better and calmer and more rational, she knew that she'd behaved very badly indeed, and she felt her face growing warm at the memory.

They had had guests for luncheon, and Robert's mother had introduced her as "my son's wife…you remember, the American." There was nothing overtly cruel in the statement—certainly not in comparison to the barbs she'd endured from Violet since her marriage—and it was a simple fact that she was "the American." Perhaps her mother-in-law had only meant to remind the other couple of the characteristic they would be most likely to remember, or perhaps she'd meant to point Cora's nationality out as a serious flaw. But if it had been the latter, there were no other unkind comments made over the luncheon, and Cora had had no significant grounds for being upset.

Yet she'd been so tired after a sleepless night of great activity on her baby's part, and her back had been so sore, and she'd felt so fat and unattractive as she'd sat there in one of the horrid creations the dressmaker had run up to disguise her growing belly. And so she'd taken the remark as a cutting insult and rounded on Robert as soon as their guests had departed.

"Why must your mother always point out how ill-suited I am? Why does every social gathering have to include a list of my flaws? Can she not let me _be_ on occasion?" she'd demanded.

Robert blinked, his expression one of sheer confusion. "Cora, I'm not sure I—"

"And you're not much better," she snapped. "Does it never occur to you to stand up for me? To tell them you think I _do_ make a decent wife and viscountess?"

"I'm not sure I recall Mamma saying anything unkind today," he said delicately.

"Well, of course you don't!" she said, hearing her voice rise and not caring. "You _never_ notice! You—"

"That's not true, Cora. You know I notice. And you know I've corrected—"

"And yet you say _nothing_ when she introduces me as 'the American'?"

"Is that what this is about?"

"What _else_ would it be about, Robert?"

She could hear that he was struggling to keep the irritation out of his voice. "Well, as I've just said, I'm not sure what you think the insult was."

"What I _think_ the insult was?"

"I wouldn't have thought that saying you were American was an insult."

"But it's what she _meant_ by it—"

"Cora," he said softly, "don't you think you're overreacting a bit?"

" _Overreacting?"_ It was nearly a shriek, and she was sure her in-laws and the servants could hear her a few rooms over, but she didn't care. "You _always_ think I'm overreacting! That's so like you, to blame everything on _me_ —"

"I'm not _blaming_ you," he said evenly. "I only meant…sometimes lately, you tend to—I think it's because of the baby—"

"Oh, I'm _sure_ that's it, Robert! Your mother tells her guests that I'm a wild, tribal Indian who's likely to be swinging from the chandelier before the second course arrives, and when I tell you I'm upset, it's because I'm an insane, hysterical pregnant woman!"

"Cora, please. This isn't good for you or for the baby. I know you don't feel well—"

"Oh, _do_ you, Robert? _Do_ you know how much my back hurts and how tired I am? _Are_ you aware that my spine feels like it's snapping in two, or that I've been up half the night as your child did somersaults inside me? Do you know what it feels like to carry a baby in your body for months on end? I must say I'm quite curious how you've acquired this firsthand knowledge, but you're damn right I don't feel well!" His eyes widened at her language, and she was perversely pleased that she'd shocked him. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go up and lie down!"

She whirled around and stalked off, made even angrier by the fact that she knew her purposeful footsteps looked more like a slow waddle.

"Cora," he began, and the soft sympathy she could hear in his voice only made her madder. "Can I get you—"

"No!" she shouted. "No, you can't get me anything! I don't want to see you or your mother for the rest of the day!"

Of course, in retrospect and with a few hours of rest, Cora could recognize that Robert had been quite right, and an insane, hysterical pregnant woman was precisely what she'd become. And now she'd have to go down and face her poor husband, as well as the in-laws who'd likely heard the whole outburst.

There was a knock at the door—her maid, she assumed. "Come in," she called.

And yet the door opened to reveal not her maid but her husband. Robert was poking his head in tentatively, as though afraid to enter the room any farther until it was clear she wouldn't throw anything at him.

"How are you?" he said hesitantly. "I know you said you didn't want me up here, but I was worried—"

"Oh Robert, I didn't mean any of that. I'm so sorry—"

"That's all right, that's all right," he said quickly. "I knew you weren't well. How are you feeling now? And how is your back, sweetheart?"

"It's quite a bit better," she said softly, still embarrassed. "I slept some, and I do feel much better now."

"Good," he said, relief spreading across his features. He stepped into the room, and she saw as he did so that he had a tray in his hands with a small, round chocolate cake resting on it—her favorite, and the object of most of her cravings lately. "I had them make you your favorite."

And that was enough to set her emotions off again. "Oh _Robert_ ," she whispered, starting to cry.

His brow furrowed in alarm. "Cora, I—"

"No, no, I'm all right," she said, unable to stop the flow. "Thank you for the cake."

He set the tray down and took a seat on the bed to embrace her.

"You were right, you know," she said, laughing through her tears as he kissed her temple. "I'm an insane, hysterical pregnant woman."

He laughed too and dried her eyes with his thumb. "I think those were your words, darling, not mine." Cora glanced at the cake again, and his eyes followed hers. "But here," he said, handing her the tray. "I think the two of you are hungry."

"I should hurry," she said, accepting it and taking a bite. "We'll miss dinner otherwise."

"I imagine you don't want that."

"No," she said, laughing again. "I certainly don't want that."


	4. I want you to have this

"There you are."

Surprised to hear his wife's voice, he turned from the ship's railing to see Cora approaching. "I thought you'd gone up for an early night," he said.

She shook her head. "No, not yet. I will soon, but I wanted to see you first."

They were on their way home to England after attending the funeral of Cora's father, a strangely foreign event filled with Jewish customs Robert couldn't quite grasp. The days preceding and following it had been emotionally draining ones, with the added complication that he was never quite sure how to handle Cora. He knew she loved him, and he knew she knew he did not quite return the feeling, and she never seemed to resent that, yet the situation left him confused as to how much comfort he was expected to offer to his grieving wife. Was his presence a source of solace at all, or was he an awkward reminder of why she'd left home in the first place—and how little she'd gotten for it?

This was their first night aboard ship, their first time alone since the funeral, and dinner had been a quiet, tearful affair. He hadn't had any idea what to say to Cora as he watched her eyes water every few minutes, and it had been a great relief when she'd announced she was going up to their cabin. He had escaped to the deck.

"I wasn't sure where you were," she went on. "And I didn't want to just wait up for you. I didn't know how long you'd be." There was a lost quality to her voice, and he instantly regretted not having followed her after dinner. Had she wanted that?

"I'm sorry, Cora. I didn't realize—"

She shook her head. "No, it's all right." He could see the ever-present tears gathering in her eyes again as she stepped closer, and he searched in vain for something to say.

"I…" She trailed off. Her mouth opened a second time, but it was though she could not quite force any words out, and then her lip began to tremble.

"Cora…" Not sure what else to say, he held his arms out—halfheartedly and hesitantly, for he was not sure she would accept, and even after six months of marriage he still felt guilty every time he touched her.

Yet it was, apparently, exactly what she wanted, for she stepped into them immediately, laying her head against his chest.

"I'm so sorry for you, darling," he said, making soft passes over her back with his hands as he felt his shirt grow wet where her face rested. Aside from a slight tremor in her shoulders, it was the only sign she was crying: she wept like a lady, the way she did everything, and it made no noise at all.

After a few moments, she pulled away and dried her eyes with a handkerchief she withdrew from her reticule. "I'm sorry," she said. "That's not what I meant to do when I came out here."

"It's all right—"

She ignored him. "I want you to have this." She took a velvet box from the small bag and passed it to him. "They–they were my father's."

Robert opened the box to find a pair of gold cufflinks, large rubies at their centers.

"Wouldn't Harold—"

"No." She shook her head. "My brother's inheriting all sorts of things, and I don't think he'd want these anyway. They've got our initial on them, not his."

It was then that he noticed a small "C" engraved on each one. "What was a man called Isidore Levinson doing with a 'C' on his cufflinks?" he asked. The thought that these were perhaps a Levinson family heirloom memorializing some long-forgotten maiden name made him all the more uncomfortable that they should go to him.

"He had a daughter called Cora," she said, as though he were daft. "And that's my birthstone, too, of course." He hoped she couldn't see his blush in the darkness as he realized he'd never bothered to look up the birthstone for July. "My mother gave them to him for his birthday a few months after I was born, as a gift from the new baby."

"Oh," he said, sensing that there was far more to this gift than that she simply wished him to have something of her father's.

"It's the first thing I ever gave to a man I loved," she said softly, her voice growing thick again. "So you see—you see why I wanted you to have them."

"Cora…Cora, I…" He did not deserve this gift, he knew. It was somehow improper, somehow horribly wrong, that he should accept something imbued with such meaning for her, not when he had already taken her heart without being able to offer his love in return. "Cora, I'm not sure I—"

"It's all right, Robert." She closed his fingers over the cufflinks. "I'm sure, and I want you to have them."

Then she kissed his cheek and slipped back inside.


	5. Happy birthday

Cora awoke alone on the morning of July 18, an unusual occurrence. Had Robert mentioned early morning plans? she wondered as she sat up. She hadn't thought so.

But then her eyes fell on the note on her nightstand. _Darling,_ it read, _I made an early start on a long list of errands, and you looked too much like an angel to wake. I'll be home later this afternoon._

Well, that was…sweet, she supposed. But she could not suppress the sinking in her chest at what the note had _not_ said. For today was her twenty-first birthday, the second she'd celebrated as a married woman.

No, not celebrated. That wasn't the right word. Last year's birthday had passed without a word from anyone. None of the family or the staff had known, and it had felt so very childish to announce, "It's my birthday," suddenly over dinner. Robert, of course, would have seen her birthdate at some point: it would have been on the marriage license and on her citizenship papers, and he'd certainly looked over all of that. But why should he have made any mental note of the day? He hadn't loved her then; she'd been nothing more than a pleasant curiosity.

But this year…this year should have been different. He'd fallen in love with her last winter and had finally told her so at their anniversary in February. The last five months had at times been rocky, as she had hesitated to let herself relax into his love after so much loneliness and neglect, but she was, for the most part, happy at last.

What she should have done, she realized as she rang for her maid and was brought breakfast, was mention to Robert that she would be twenty-one soon. But she had been harboring the hope—or perhaps the illusion—that of course he would have investigated her birthdate on his own, and he would simply _know_. Without giving it much thought, she had set up some ridiculous test of his love for her, a test that he could not help but fail.

She toyed with the idea of simply telling him when he returned, but she did not want to make him feel guilty, nor did she think she could stand to ask him if he knew what day it was and see him stare blankly in response. And so Cora resigned herself to another private birthday.

It was not that she wanted to be showered with gifts and diamonds, or have a party thrown in London with all their acquaintances, or even a small family celebration here at Downton. All she wanted, really, was her husband's acknowledgment of the day and of her: she would have been quite happy simply to wake up to a kiss and a whispered _happy birthday_.

She did not see Robert at all that morning and glumly busied herself with embroidery in the drawing room. The weather matched her mood, with thunder and pouring rain that seemed intent on continuing all day. Her husband did not return home in time for luncheon, either, and the meal passed in inane conversation with her in-laws. It was all somehow far more disappointing than last year—last year, she hadn't let herself hope.

Determined to make something of the day herself, she decided she would spend the afternoon reading in her room—she could at least relax there, rather than pretending to listen to her mother-in-law's gossip about society women whose names Cora could never quite keep straight.

But when she opened her bedroom door, she gasped.

" _Cora!"_ Robert exclaimed, whirling around.

The room had been transformed into a greenhouse, an absolute sea of flowers: bouquets burst from vases on every flat surface, long-stemmed roses stretched themselves across her dressing table and her pillow, and garlands of greenery and wildflowers were strung along the canopy and the posts of the bed.

Robert had been standing next to a small table which held two champagne flutes, a bouquet of roses—twenty-one of them, she slowly counted as she tried to take it all in—and a plate piled high with chocolate-covered strawberries, her favorite. He was clutching a bottle of champagne.

"What—I thought you—what on earth are you _doing_?" she asked, stunned.

"What does it look like?" He smiled. "I'm getting ready for your birthday." She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. "I'd meant to do this in the rose garden," he went on. "I thought we'd have dessert and tea out there, but when I woke up this morning and saw the weather, I panicked, and I knew I'd have to find a way to bring the garden inside, so I ran off to every florist I could find and then started setting up in here. I'm glad you didn't get here any earlier, but it's ready now." He lifted one of the champagne glasses, poured some of the drink inside, and held it out to her. "Happy birthday, darling."

She stepped forward and wordlessly accepted it, leaning in to kiss his cheek.

"I hope you're not too disappointed we're stuck inside," he whispered as he slipped an arm around her waist to pull her close.

"Oh no," she said, setting the flute down on the table so that she could wrap her arms around his neck, drawing his face down for a deeper kiss. "I think my bedroom's the _ideal_ place for a celebration."

* * *

AN: The Downton wikia lists July 18, 1868, as Cora's birthday, but that's never been stated on the show. July 18 is also Elizabeth McGovern's birthday, so I'm not sure if some press pack/JF interview/etc. at some point indicated that the actress's birthday should be considered the same as the character's, or if some fan just thought that would be cute and stuck it on the website. Regardless, it's definitely my headcanon, and when I figure Cora's age for fics I always base it off this date.


	6. Here, drink this You'll feel better

"A lady," Violet said, "is never ill, not when she has guests to attend to. If she _must_ be unwell, she is careful to do so on her own time, when it will not be an inconvenience to anyone else."

So her mother-in-law responded when Cora attempted to beg off the next day's shooting party. "I'm not sure I'll be well enough to attend," she'd begun, intending to tell her about the sore throat she'd been fighting all day, and how she expected to feel worse in the morning and doubted that following along after Robert in the crisp November air for hours on end would do her any good. Yet she had not had time to describe any symptoms before Violet had looked down her nose at her and delivered her pronouncement.

"I'm not sure I can agree with the practicality of that," Cora attempted, drawing a breathy laugh from her mother-in-law.

"Yes, I know how practical you Americans can be. I shouldn't forget you're not an English country girl. I suppose if you're ill, you're ill. I imagine our guests will be quite understanding of the delicacy of foreign constitutions."

And that, of course, had left Cora in absolutely no doubt as to where she would be tomorrow: she'd be out on the field, watching Robert shoot, and then gaily joining the others for luncheon, even if she were half delirious from fever.

She woke in the morning with a sharp stinging in her throat, accompanied now by a stuffiness in her head and a general aching in her body, but she dragged herself out of bed anyway and rang for her maid to dress her.

"Pardon me for saying so, milady, but I'm not sure you have any business going outside today," the other woman said. "Perhaps you might stay behind during the shoot itself?"

It sounded tempting, but Cora could picture the look on Violet's face if she stayed indoors and merely appeared for the meal. And who would her mother-in-law choose to walk with Robert? She immediately imagined him heading out with one of the "English country girls" his mother had preferred as a bride.

She and Robert had been married nine months, and it had been nine months during which it had been abundantly clear that, while he was kind enough to her, he felt no great affection, certainly nothing that matched her love for him. The situation had not improved with time, as Cora had originally expected it to—in fact, Robert seemed to have grown even more awkward in her presence lately than he had been when they'd first married. It had all made for an exhausting almost-year for her as she'd fought and fought and fought to keep from seeming as unqualified and unfit and unsuitable as Violet thought she was. Privately, she agreed with her mother-in-law some days, and her worst fear was that Robert might as well.

And so she shook her head at her maid's suggestion and instructed her to fetch her heaviest coat.

* * *

"Are you all right?" Robert asked as they started outside. "You're very quiet this morning."

It was unusual for her not to mix happily with the other guests, but as they'd readied themselves in the front hall, she'd stood miserably silent in the midst of their merriment. Cora did not feel at all up for chatter, nor was speaking an attractive prospect with the shards of glass that seemed to have lodged themselves in her throat. But she did not want to admit to Robert that she was ill, for fear he would insist she stay back or, worse, repeat the information to his mother, so she merely nodded in response to the question.

Yet they had not been very long in the cold air before she began to sneeze with increasing frequency, and Robert turned to her between shots. "Are you all right, Cora? I'm not sure you should be out here."

She shook her head. "I'm fine," she squeaked, but she knew the pathetic sound her voice made as she tried to talk around her sore throat was not helping her case. Robert looked at her skeptically, but he did not press the matter, and she thought he would let it drop.

But he returned to the subject again before the hour was out after another fit of sneezes and coughs. "Cora, you're not feeling well. Let me take you back."

Good heavens, anything but that. The last thing she wanted was for Violet to go on about how she'd not only skipped the party herself; she'd broken up the shoot by drawing her husband away as well. "No," she croaked. "I don't need to go back inside."

"You're right, you don't need to go back inside; you need to go back to bed. You sound as though you've got a dreadful cold—"

"I haven't. Please, there's just something in the air; that's all."

"Cora…"

"I'm not ill. Please, Robert, I'm not. I'm sure I'm not ill. I'm perfectly capable of staying out with you."

He had been studying her, and something in his expression seemed to change at her last sentence. "All right," he said after a pause. "All right, you're not ill, and we'll carry on."

And so they did. Robert made no further mentions or inquiries about her health, and she was thankful that he did not ask her anything that she couldn't answer with a nod or a shake of her head. She was, she admitted to herself, feeling quite wretched, and the cool temperatures weren't helping, but she focused on setting one foot in front of the other and listening to Robert's and the other men's shots. It was not much longer before her husband was calling the rest of the party in. Had the time passed so quickly? she wondered with relief.

"Robert, have you forgotten the other half of the woods?" her father-in-law called out, and her heart sank. She'd been so looking forward to the warmth of a fire at Downton…

But Robert shook his head. "I was talking with Bowman just yesterday. He said the game's quite down on that side, and he doubted it was worth our time to go over there."

"Ah, well," the earl responded. "Unusual at this time of year, but I suppose there's nothing to be done for it."

Cora thought she could have kissed the old gamekeeper for having mentioned this, and she hurried along beside Robert in the direction of the house. She might have thought her husband had cut the shoot short for her sake, but he had seemed to accept her protests at last, and anyway, that would have required an affection that the months since their wedding had convinced her he did not feel.

But then he did something she did not at all expect.

The group returned to the house, still rather early for luncheon, and settled into the library, Cora drifting to a spot near the fire. It was warmer inside than out, yet she could not shake the chill she'd felt at being stripped of her coat, and she knew she was likely running at least a low fever. But if this was a battle of wills with her English mother-in-law, she was determined not to surrender now.

After a few minutes, she felt a touch at her arm and turned to see Robert holding a steaming mug. "I know you don't want a fuss made," he said, glancing over his shoulder at the crowd as he whispered. "And I know you're perfectly able to handle this party, but…"

"Yes?" she said. Her cold seemed to have slowed her brain to the point that it was too much of an effort to make connections on her own.

"Here," he said, taking her right hand, pressing the cup into it, and then wrapping her other hand around it as well. "Drink this. You'll feel better."

She nodded, losing the will to protest, and took a sip as he slipped away to entertain their guests. It was tea, she realized as she drank, hot tea mixed with herbs and honey, and it soothed her throat and warmed her body as the spices in its aroma worked to clear her breathing.

She stared after Robert, not quite comprehending him.


	7. Don't cry

AN: This chapter does fit one of the prompts from the original Tumblr list, but it's also a response to a request from zaibi12, who asked if I would write an alternative to 5.03 in which Robert apologizes to Cora. I was happy to, because that episode totally made me want to punch him in the face. (You're such a donk, Robert!) And I totally think Cora cried in her room afterwards.

So, without further ado, here's what _should_ have happened that night.

* * *

 _That an art expert would find your observations on the work of Piero della Francesca impossible to resist? Yes, it is hard to believe!_

 _I'm going to bed._

 _Cora—_

 _It's quite all right. You've said what you think, and you have every right to do so._

He pushes open the bedroom door to see Cora at the dressing table, her back to him. She makes no noise—she rarely does, when she weeps—but her shoulders are trembling slightly, and he realizes with a sinking feeling that she's crying. He could turn to go—she hasn't seen him yet, and he'd been tempted to retreat to the dressing room he'd been given as he'd made his way here—but the knowledge of her tears roots him to the spot. It's the one thing he can't stand, the one thing he can't bear to know he's caused. He'd been angry when she'd come home, yes, and he'd meant to argue, yes, but not to provoke the wounded look she'd given him on the way out of the drawing room, and certainly not to make her cry.

"Cora," he says, swallowing against his own guilt. "Cora, please don't cry."

A sniffle, suddenly, that confirms his suspicion. "I'm not," she says thickly, " _crying_."

 _Of course you are,_ he's tempted to say, but it will do no good to antagonize her. What she wants is for him to go, to leave her alone, but she's already pushed him away once tonight, and he won't let her do it again.

He steps further into the room and takes a seat on the side of the bed. "Cora," he says again, and her posture stiffens. He wants to take her in his arms, to forget this whole evening, but he knows she won't accept it. And so he forces out his apology.

"I shouldn't have spoken to you that way," he says quietly. "I shouldn't have been harsh. I was disappointed, and upset, and I let that… I didn't mean it the way it sounded. I…I'm sorry."

It's as though he hasn't spoken, and he perches awkwardly on the edge of the mattress, waiting for her to turn, to tell him she forgives him, to say _something_. His anger is, after all, her fault in the first place. But she does not speak, and he wonders what else he was supposed to have said, what else she could possibly be upset over.

Frustrated, he stands, intending to depart for his dressing room, when he hears a stifled sob. And then he knows he can't leave her to cry alone.

Sighing, he approaches her slowly and lays a hand on her shoulder. Her muscles do not tense and she does not shrug him off, and, encouraged, he begins to rub gently. She does not pull away from that either, and so he reaches up to begin removing the pins in her hair. He's practiced at doing this after so many years, having learned early in their marriage that he could relax her by letting her hair down with feather-light touches and then running his fingers through it, and she's teased that he could always seek a career as a lady's maid. Slowly, he removes each pin, smoothing each bit of hair as it falls free, and he finds it calms him as well. She continues to weep, but something in her shoulders seems to soften.

"But you did," she chokes suddenly. "You _did_."

Finally, they're getting somewhere. "I did, what?"

She turns her head slightly, and he sees the tear tracks on her face. Almost without thinking, he reaches out to touch her cheek with the back of his fingers in a soft caress.

"You did mean it the way it sounded."

"Cora, I only meant that I don't think Mr. Bricker wants to talk about art with you anymore than he wants to discuss it with me or with the girls or anyone else outside his line of work. I think he seeks your company because his intentions are…dishonorable, and it upsets me. I didn't mean to sound so condescending."

She shakes her head. "You may not have meant it, but we all know you place little value on my opinions."

What? "That's not true!"

"Yes, it is. You think I'm a fool."

"Cora, I…" he sputters. "I–I don't even know where this is coming from."

She whirls around in the chair, suddenly more angry than sad, and he steps back. "How many times have you asked my opinion on _anything_ about the estate?"

Well, none that he can think of, but… "I didn't know you cared about the estate."

"Why did you think I've asked so many questions?"

Questions? When has she asked questions? "I didn't notice—"

"Of course you didn't! I used to get, 'It's nothing to bother you with,' but now I'm lucky to hear you say that. Half the time when I speak, you don't acknowledge it at all."

He didn't? "Darling…Cora, I didn't realize…"

"You don't pay me any mind at all. When was the last time you sought me out? When was the last time you asked me anything? When was the last time you _wanted_ me? I don't really think you think I'm a fool…I don't think you think about me at all."

"Cora…this isn't…I don't…" He isn't sure if he doesn't know what she means, or if he can't _admit_ that he knows. He does know he's overwhelmed, and completely wrong-footed, by all of this. They'd been arguing about Mr. Bricker, he'd thought, and then he'd hurt her by speaking angrily and carelessly, but…

"I thought…wasn't this about Mr. Bricker?" he asks, trying to bring the conversation back to simpler grounds.

"Oh, _forget_ Mr. Bricker! I don't _care_ about Mr. Bricker!"

"You…don't?"

"No, of course not!" He can hear tears threatening again. "I care about _you_!"

And suddenly, it crystallizes. Cora enjoys Bricker's attention not because she wants _Bricker's_ attention but because she wants _Robert's_ , and Bricker treats her the way he…used to. The way he thought he still did. The way he _means_ to. But when has he last asked her more than, _when should we take tea?_ or _have you seen Carson?_ When has he last sought a moment alone with her? When has their coupling last been more than a quick business before bed, more of habit than of desire? When has he last told her he loves her?

Before he can speak, her lip begins to tremble again, and she whispers, "It's like the beginning of our marriage, all over again, and I don't know what I've done _wrong_!"

Hasn't he sworn, time after time, that he'd never let her be so lonely again? That he'd never again let her feel unloved?

"Oh darling." He sinks to his knees at her feet and takes her hands in his, pressing kiss to her palms. "Oh my _dearest_. You have done _nothing_ wrong. I've been distracted lately…I didn't realize…I haven't thought…but I do love you…please, darling, don't think that I don't."

She gives a slight nod, and he pulls her into his arms, her head falling immediately to his shoulder. She presses her face against his neck, and he feels his skin grow wet with her tears.

"I'm sorry," he whispers to her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, "I'm so sorry to have hurt you." Because that's what it comes down to: he's not sorry he was angry about Bricker, he's not sorry he's had other things on his mind, he's not sorry he's said the wrong things and she's understood them the wrong way. None of these are the offense, and perhaps he was as justified in all of it as he would like to think. What he's done wrong, what he's desperately sorry for, what could never be justified, is that he's hurt her.

She clings to him tightly, and he suddenly sees the recent months through her eyes as he runs his hands through her loosened hair. How distant he's been…how _cold_ , at times…how very often he's taken her love and her affection as a given thing, not a treasure to be earned and valued. For he knows what Cora wants, what Cora's always wanted: kindness, affection, companionship. Not hard things to give, but somehow he's forgotten.

And then Bricker arrived, and he was jealous, and he botched that, too. He meant, at first, to brush it all off by warning her off the man, and he thought it would seem lighter if it was more of a joke than a confrontation…but he'd known, hadn't he, even before he spoke that using the dog as a stand-in for her would hit the wrong note entirely.

And then tonight…she'd spent an evening being flattered and pleased and attended to, and then she'd come home to him, and what did he do? Insult her. Raise his voice to her. Imply no one in his right mind would want to hear her thoughts.

"I'm sorry for…for what I said about Isis," he whispers as he strokes her back, feeling the tension in her muscles.

"Isis?" she asks, her voice muffled against him.

"The first night Mr. Bricker came to Downton," he mutters, feeling his face burn. She stiffens in his arms, and he knows then that yes, his words did cut her deeply, but then she presses a kiss to his neck as though in an offer of forgiveness.

"And tonight, too—"

"Robert," she says softly, "you haven't got to keep apologizing."

He kisses her again, and then she sits up. Her eyes are red, but she's smiling now, and she lays her hand against his cheek. "Robert?"

He covers her hand with his own. "Yes, darling?"

"Will you still take me dancing?"

His first reaction is _no, not tonight, it's late now, let's do it another time, you aren't even in evening clothes,_ but he stops himself. It isn't what she wants him to say; it isn't what he _should_ say after everything she's told him.

And so he smiles, too, and pulls her hand from his cheek so that he can kiss it. "Of course, darling. Of course I'll take you. Do you want to call Baxter and change?"

"I'd rather not wait," she says shyly. "Will this be all right?"

His sense of decorum tells him no, that this isn't proper, that she ought not to have dined in this dress either, but he also knows that it isn't a question he is meant to say no to. "Of course. I don't mind what you wear," he says, and finds that he means it.

"Although you have rather destroyed my hair," she says with a chuckle. "But I can fix it well enough." She arranges it again and pins it herself, and it is not quite Baxter's level of work, but she is beautiful just the same.

And then she slips her arm through his and they go downstairs for a taxi, Cora laughing and talking and kissing his cheek once they climb inside.

Because that is who she is, he thinks, who she has always been: she forgives readily and easily and forgets immediately, her heart always waiting for him and always ready to embrace him again.


	8. I don't mind

Cora moaned softly, her eyes fluttering awake as she registered the soreness in her stomach and her back and between her legs—the familiar ache of giving birth just a few days before.

 _Giving birth._ What an odd phrase in this context. _Birth_ implied joy and newness and life. She had not given birth. She had given _death_ , her body forcing out, against her will and against her screams, a half-formed, bloody baby who had fit in her hand and who had never even drawn breath.

Waking in the middle of the night was almost expected now. After days of bedrest, her body was no longer tired enough for a full night's sleep, nor was her mind prepared to rest long enough to allow her one. Her first thought each time she woke was always her son's face, with his translucent skin and his permanently closed eyes…an image that made drifting off again impossible.

With a soft sigh—she'd run dry of tears—Cora moved to roll over, hoping to soothe herself by snuggling closer to her still-sleeping husband. And yet…she turned over to find herself alone. Squinting as her eyes adjusted, she saw the flickering light of a lamp spilling beneath his dressing room door. He had gone to bed in here and fallen asleep with her, but she supposed he had been unable to stay asleep either and had left so as not to wake her.

She would get up too, she decided immediately. She was not, strictly speaking, supposed to be out of bed except to use the washroom, but if she could walk there, she could certainly walk to Robert's dressing room. It was far better than lying here alone; nothing calmed her like his presence. She had begun to feel a bit ashamed of her clinginess and constant need for comforting, especially in light of Robert's own English stoicism, but she told herself she would not cling to him now. It would be enough just to curl up on his bed while he sat in his chair with a novel, or whatever else he was doing in there. It would be enough just to have him near.

With a hiss of pain, Cora rose from the bed, supporting herself for a moment on the nightstand. She was still so _weak_ , she thought as she shuffled across the room. Her trips to the washroom had all been on the arm of Robert or O'Brien—dear, _sweet_ O'Brien, who couldn't have taken better care of her—and she was quickly realizing that it was far more difficult to walk on her own.

Yet she made it to the dividing door and pushed it open, finding her husband standing at the window, his back to her.

"Robert?" she called softly.

He gave an odd, strangled noise but did not turn, and then she realized he was trembling. Was he… _weeping_? Surely not.

"Darling?" She stepped closer to him. "Robert, are you…"

He started at the sound of her voice and turned slightly to look at her. He _was_ weeping—no, not just weeping. Sobbing. Bawling like a child.

"Oh, my dearest," she began, reaching out for him. She had never seen him cry like this—not even at the death of his father—but the rawness of his grief did not shock her, for it was no different from her own.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry," he choked. "I didn't mean for you to—I didn't want—"

"Don't apologize," she whispered, wrapping him tightly in her arms and bringing his head onto her shoulder. "I don't mind."

She felt his body convulse against hers as he gasped her name, and he gripped her firmly as well, holding her up as she was holding him.


	9. Can I hold your hand?

Her labor began in the morning. Cora had finished breakfast and then drug herself and her belly out of bed for Hawkins to dress her, sighing with impatience as her maid arranged her hair. She was not sure why she was impatient—it was not as though she were going anywhere, or _could_ go anywhere. The stairs had been forbidden to her for weeks now, and she had no desire to go down them anyway only to have to haul herself back up again. She was impatient with everything these days, she supposed—impatient with how poorly she slept and how difficult it was to get comfortable, impatient with how terribly sore her back was, impatient with how long it was taking for this baby to come _out_.

"Any day now, milady," Hawkins murmured soothingly. Cora sighed again. She was two weeks overdue, and she'd lost track of how many times she'd moaned to her maid or her husband about how tired she was of being pregnant and how many times they'd replied with variations of, "not much longer." Easy for them to say.

"Yes, that's what I keep hearing," Cora said testily. Wisely, the maid did not respond.

"Finished, my lady," Hawkins said a moment later, offering her a hand to help her off the chair.

Cora stretched her back as best she could—oh, how she _ached_ this morning—before reaching out for Hawkins's hand. At the stretch, she felt…a slight trickle between her legs. Had her constant need for the washroom turned into simply wetting herself? How _humiliating_.

"Hawkins, I…" she began as she let her maid help her haul herself up. But as she stood, there was a sudden gush of fluid, and she realized what this was. "I–I'm having the baby," she said. Hearing the words made it real, and she seized her maid's arm, suddenly frightened. "Hawkins, he's coming! Right now!"

Hawkins shook her head calmly—as she was fond of reminding her young employer, she'd seen several previous ladies through a total of ten pregnancies, and this was all familiar territory to her. "You've got hours, ma'am. Hours. But let's get you undressed…"

All of the clothing Cora had just put on was removed, and her hair was taken down, and the doctor was sent for as her maid and her mother helped her back into bed. She was not quite sure when Martha had been called for, but her sudden appearance did not surprise Cora—her mother had been hovering for _weeks_ now.

As the morning drug on, it became increasingly clear that Hawkins had been quite right. She did have hours. She labored past luncheon and all afternoon and through the rest of the family's dinner.

And the longer it lasted, the more frightened Cora became. It surprised her, how scared she was of actually _having_ the baby—she was suddenly willing to sign on for another month of waddling around the upstairs to delay the birth. Suppose it was a girl, instead the "he" she had stubbornly called it for months? What would her in-laws say? What would _Robert_ say?

Or suppose there was something wrong with it? Or wrong with her? _Why_ was it taking so long? _Why_ , when she had suffered all day, was the doctor telling her she was only halfway dilated? He did not seem alarmed, nor did Hawkins or Martha, but Cora could not help but fear that something had gone wrong—or _would_ go wrong before she was finished.

She was determined not to scream—she was _determined_ that she would be a viscountess, even in this—but she could not stifle a whimper as another pain ripped through her. She reached for her mother's hand and squeezed it tightly.

"You're doing well," Martha said, wiping her forehead again with damp cloth. "Just breathe. It'll be over soon, baby." But she'd been hearing that for hours, and it didn't square with what the doctor had said. "Not much longer, and then we'll call Robert up here to see the little one and tell him how brave you've been."

 _Robert._ Yes, where was Robert? She knew he couldn't be here, knew he _shouldn't_ be here, but where was he? She tried to envision him, pacing in the library, waiting for the doctor's periodic updates; tried to focus on him instead of her pain; tried to comfort herself by imagining him at her side. For it had been Robert to whom she'd learned to turn when she was frightened before a ball or a dinner or anything else where her cultural ignorance would be on display. Nothing soothed her fears like his hand slipping around hers.

But then her muscles contracted again, and she couldn't think of anything other than how it felt as though she were being torn in half. She bit her lip hard to hold back a scream, turning it instead into a quiet moan.

"For God's sake, Cora, _scream_ if you need to!"

She shook her head violently. That would be her mother's suggestion, wouldn't it? But she wasn't an American anymore. She was Lady Downton.

 _She was Lady Downton._ Or so she told herself. But the night wore on, and the pains grew more intense, and she was more and more exhausted…and finally, a shriek tore from her throat.

She had barely fallen silent when the door was flung open.

 _"Robert!"_ Martha cried. Cora's mother might have little use for propriety, but a father's presence in the birthing room shocked even her.

Yet he ignored her, his wide eyes fixed on Cora. "I–I heard you," he said.

Of course he had heard her. The speed of his arrival made it clear that he had not been downstairs in the library, as she had imagined, but standing right outside her room.

"I'm all right," she gasped. "It was only— _ohhh_." It hit her again, and she bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut against the pain.

"Darling," he said, his voice desperate, "why don't I—let me…can I hold your hand?"

She reached out for him, and he hurried to her, wrapping her hand in his. And suddenly…there was still pain, but there was also peace.


	10. Can I kiss you?

AN: Hello all! I wasn't planning on posting after season 6 began in the UK (which of course was just a few hours ago), but I wanted to squeeze one more chapter in, and I didn't finish this until this evening. So here we are, and I'm going to count on everyone NOT to leave any spoilers in my reviews!

I am an American who prefers to watch the show for the first time when it airs here in January and February. As a result, I'm taking a hiatus from this website for fear of coming across spoilers. I am going to miss reading fics and posting my own writing terribly, but I'll be back at the end of the winter (hopefully with a sequel to The Broken Places). Until then, please don't write anything in a review for any of my stories like, "This is so similar to what happened in last night's episode!"

* * *

After an eternal day of travel, Robert and Cora—the American girl he had married just the day before—had arrived in Paris. They had been married from Grantham House in London, rather than his family estate in Yorkshire, the countryside having been judged far too dreary for a February wedding, and thus the journey had been a shorter one than it would have been if they'd begun from farther north. Yet it had still been an early morning, and an emotional goodbye to Cora's parents, and then a long train ride to the coast and a never-ending trip across the Channel (during which he had suspected Cora had been slightly seasick, although she did not complain), and then one last train from Cherbourg to Paris, and finally a carriage to their hotel.

It had all been exhausting, and it had been made far worse by Robert's nervous awkwardness with his new bride. They had spent so little time alone before, he'd realized as their train pulled out of King's Cross that morning, and now the hours and days and weeks in France and Italy stretched on ahead of them. He liked Cora—she was sweet and kind, and she had been so friendly and bubbly in the beginning—but he was increasingly unsure of what to say to her. And she had grown more withdrawn as the wedding had approached, reaching a new level of silence today. They were now eating a silent dinner in the dining room of their hotel suite.

"Are you tired?" Robert asked, searching for something to say.

He immediately regretted the question when her head jerked up, her eyes suddenly fearful. "A–a bit," she said hesitantly. "That is…I don't mean—I'm not _too_ tired, if you wanted…" She trailed off, chewing her lip.

Robert winced at the memory of last night and how very badly it had gone. While he knew her first time would have been uncomfortable regardless, he blamed himself for just how painful it seemed to have been. In his own excitement, he had pushed in far too quickly, and likely far too hard, and Cora had cried out in pain. He'd pulled back as fast as he could, frightened at the way she'd screwed up her face and gone rigid underneath him. He may not have loved her, but he did care for her, and he certainly hadn't wanted to hurt her.

"Are you…Cora, are you all right?" he'd asked.

And then the worst of it: she'd apologized. "I'm sorry," she'd said weakly as she lay bleeding beneath him, blinking back tears. "I didn't mean to do that."

Robert pulled himself back to the present. "We don't have to, not tonight," he said. "Not if you're tired." _And sore,_ he added silently, feeling his face redden as he recalled the stiff way she'd walked that morning.

She shook her head. "You shouldn't think like that. I—I mean to be a good wife."

Yes, but he did not think that should entail suffering. "Not tonight," he repeated. "I want you to… _recover_." He lowered his voice, instinctively afraid of listening servants, although the hotel footman had served their meal and left them alone. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I'm not sure that's avoidable, the first time," she said softly.

Perhaps not, but it didn't need to be as bad as it had been. "No," he said, suddenly too embarrassed to keep meeting his wife's eyes. "I meant to be…gentler. I will be, next time. Tomorrow. I don't want…I don't want you to be afraid of me." For that was the worst of it, he thought. Not only that he'd hurt this lovely creature, but that she feared him, that she would continue to pull away, that she would dread their coupling.

Finally, a small smile. "I'm not afraid of you, Robert." Her left hand was laying on the table, and she slid it forward ever-so-slightly. He took it as a signal, and, hesitantly, he reached forward and took her hand in his. She clasped it eagerly and smiled again.

They were silent for a moment, but it somehow was not as awkward as it had been. "Thank you," she said eventually. "You're very considerate, and you're very kind."

He pressed her hand—not quite a squeeze—and then let go to finish his meal, far more happily than he had begun it.

They would, of course, be sleeping separately tonight, their suite having come with the traditional two bedrooms, and he found himself fumbling slightly as he bid her good night at the door to hers. She was so close…so beautiful…so soft, as he ran his hands over her arms…

"Cora…can I…could I at least…can I kiss you?" he asked, suddenly afraid to frighten her again.

But she giggled in response and stepped closer still. "Of course you can."

* * *

AN: Just a reminder...no mentions of season 6 in any reviews! Thanks, and I'll see you in February!


	11. I picked these for you

AN: I know I said I was on hiatus until season 6 finishes in the U.S. (February), but I missed fanfiction too much, so I've written a few one-shots and it was killing me not to post them. So I'll be posting a couple more chapters to this story over the next few weeks. I figured the potential for spoilers in reviews for a collection like this was pretty minimal, but please remember NO MENTIONS OF SEASON 6 in my reviews. Thank you! :-)

* * *

Cora sighed miserably and shoved the heavy duvet off again, fighting a fever that left her freezing one minute and baking the next. She'd awakened sick that morning, and the doctor had been called, diagnosing only "a mild flu, your ladyship—certainly nothing very serious." She was glad of that, but it did not make her stomach any less queasy, or her body any less achy, or her head any less painful.

But worse than any of her symptoms was how lonely she was. She'd lain in bed all day and had seen no one but her maid. By this time in the afternoon, she would usually have been out walking on the estate with Robert, her arm tucked in his as he listened to her go on about all manner of things. She also would have seen him at luncheon and would have looked forward to seeing him at dinner, and perhaps to an evening together in the drawing room, playing cards or talking quietly.

But of course, tucked away ill in her room, she would not see him at all. For while he seemed to enjoy her company well enough and never avoided her, it was she who sought out Robert and she who was in love with him, not the other way around.

Suddenly—so quietly she wasn't sure if she'd imagined it—she heard his voice call out, "Cora?"

"Yes?" she said weakly, wondering if she'd dozed off and the word had been a fragment of a dream.

It wasn't, because the door opened to reveal her young husband, looking nervous and clutching a vase of flowers. "I hope I didn't wake you," he said.

She shook her head, too surprised at his arrival to say much of anything.

"How are you feeling?" he asked after a moment, as though he was not quite sure what to say.

"Not very well." That seemed more demure than _horrid_ or _dreadful_.

"I'm sorry you're sick," he said, and he truly looked it. "I–I picked these for you." He set the vase on her bedside table, and she swallowed the lump that had risen into her throat at his words. The sentiment was a kind one, but there was also something very sweet in what exactly he'd said: not "I asked for these for you," or "I bought these," or even, "I went out to the gardener and took a few of what he'd snipped," but "I picked these for you." It was not, she thought, just an expression: she was suddenly certain that Robert had gone out to one of the gardens, carefully chosen what she'd like best, and snipped them off himself.

Her thoughts were confirmed when he continued, "I remembered you always like the daffodils when we go out for walks."

Cora nodded, and when she thought she could speak again, she said, "I do, yes. Thank you."

There was another silence, and finally, his cheeks growing slightly pink at his words, he said, "I'm glad you were awake. I've missed you today."

He _had_?

"Would it disturb you if I sat with you?"

 _Disturb_ her?

"No, no, of course not," she stammered. "I'm not sure I'll be much use for conversation, but it would be nice to have you here, if you don't mind." But he was already carrying the chair from her dressing table over to her bedside.

"Do you need anything?" he asked before he sat down.

"Could you ring for my maid and ask her to get something cool for my forehead?" she asked. She'd been longing for a damp cloth laid over her eyes but hadn't managed to summon the strength to sit up and reach for the bell pull.

"I could get that for you right now," he said. "There's no need to wait for her."

"Oh," she said softly, "of course." Yet the idea of Robert fetching something for her himself had not seemed an obvious one, not at all.

She listened as he stepped into the washroom and ran the water. He returned a moment later with a wet handtowel, which he gingerly folded across her forehead. "Is that all right?" he asked hesitantly, and she almost smiled at his uncertainty with nursing.

"Yes, thank you," she murmured. "That's lovely."

"Could you talk to me?" she asked as he took a seat. She wanted some continued confirmation that he was still there and not a figment of her imagination.

"Won't the noise trouble you?"

"No, not if it's quiet. I just want to hear your voice. It doesn't matter what you say."

He began to speak, and she closed her eyes, letting herself be soothed by cool on her forehead and the soft sound of her husband's voice.


	12. I bought you a ticket

AN: I have the impression from the season 6 trailers that Downton may be sinking financially this season (and I know other estates are). This drabble was written with that in mind. But NO SPOILERS, please. :-) So if I'm right, please don't write in the reviews, "Yeah this is totally what happens and Robert sells everything!", or if I'm way off, don't write, "It's totally okay because they get another windfall from another improbable source!" Thank you all for keeping silent for me! :-)

* * *

He found her alone in the library after dinner. "Cora?"

She slowly pulled her eyes away from the fire to focus on her husband. "I wasn't ready to go up yet," she explained. "But I didn't want to sit with the others in the drawing room. I didn't want…"

"You wanted to be alone."

"Not exactly. I didn't want to be with…everyone. I don't mind if you stay." He heard in her words the unspoken understanding that they knew each other so well, had been at each other's side for so many decades, that there was no loss of privacy in the other's presence.

He sat down next to her on the couch, slipping a tentative arm around her. She sighed and shifted immediately into his arms, resting her head against his shoulder.

"I keep thinking," she said quietly, "how, when she left three years ago, I…it didn't occur to me that it would be the last time. I suppose I _should_ have thought of it—at her age, any visit might have been her last—but somehow I didn't think there'd ever be a last time."

"Are you wishing you'd been able to say goodbye?"

She thought for a moment. "No…not exactly. I don't know that that would have made it any easier. I suppose I just wish it hadn't happened at all…but I know that's impossible." She sighed again. "I suppose all children wish their mothers would live forever."

He laid a feather-light kiss on her forehead. They'd gotten Harold's telegram just that afternoon.

"I do want you to know, Robert, that I understand," Cora said after a moment's silence. "I'm not angry, and I do understand."

He frowned. Why should he have thought her angry? "What do you understand, sweetheart?"

"The money. I know we…can't, not now."

Ah. She _didn't_ understand. She hadn't understood him at all.

Harold's telegram had stated that the funeral would not be for a week's time, to allow Cora time to cross the Atlantic, should she wish to. "Could we…could we afford that?" she'd asked him uncertainly, clutching the little piece of paper as tears swam in her eyes.

"Not easily," he'd said, mentally calculating the cost of a round-trip voyage for her and for Baxter. "I'd need to make a sale…art, perhaps."

She'd merely nodded, a gesture he'd taken to me that she approved of whatever he chose to sell. Yet now he was realizing that her nod had not been agreement with his plan; it had been acceptance of what she'd heard as a refusal.

"Cora—"

"I understand, that with the estate…and our accounts the way they are at the moment…"

"Cora—"

"You haven't got to apologize, Robert. I know it isn't a good time—"

"Cora—"

"It was foolish of me to ask you; it was only that I was…shocked, when I first read the words…" She trailed off, her hand tightening in his, and he knew she was fighting her tears again.

He took it as his chance to finally speak. "Cora, I bought you a ticket."

She pulled away, sitting up so that she could look at him. "What?"

"I bought you a ticket. You're departing from Southampton the day after tomorrow."

"And you've–you've sold something? Robert, you didn't need—"

"I'll sell a painting next week to cover the cost. And yes, I needed to. It's your mother's funeral, Cora. There wasn't ever any question of not sending you."

She managed a slight smile as her eyes filled again, and he pulled her back into his arms. She buried her face in his neck, and he felt his skin grow wet with her tears. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you."


	13. Be careful

AN: Sorry, this is so much longer than a "drabble" that it's not even funny. :-) As usual, no mentions of season 6 in the reviews, please!

* * *

December 1889 showed itself to be the start of a particularly cold winter, at least for England, and by Christmas any water on the Downton estate had frozen over. This led to an excited Robert enthusiastically making plans to incorporate an afternoon of ice skating in the New Year's house party. Cora had smiled indulgently at his surprise and wonder at the temperatures. She had grown up spending holidays in Connecticut, where nearly every Christmas had been white and nearly every lake had been suitable for skating. The idea that you might have to hope and wait for a freeze was a foreign one, like so much else in this country.

But she was pleased nonetheless, she had to admit as she laced up her skates. It was so nice to have a social activity that did not involve the drinking of gallon after gallon of tea.

It was also nice to do something where she might be permitted a moment alone at this house party, a moment where she was not forced to make inane conversation. "I may skate a bit further out," she said to Robert, who—she supposed in an effort to keep them all together on Downton's largest pond—had told them everyone not to go past the oak tree.

"Well, do be careful," he admonished her.

 _Do be careful._ Robert's favorite phrase, one she heard whenever they had guests or attended an event at another great house. She was perpetually instructed to _be careful_ as to what she wore or how she arranged the flowers or how often she spoke (and what about) or how much wine she drank or which invitations she accepted or any number of things. It was not that she was reckless, she thought, but that he was so overly cautious, so worried about what impression they might give, at all times. She heard in his constant warning that he knew he had married a wild savage, a bull in a china cabinet who could not be trusted to handle herself among the well-born.

And what did he imagine she would do _here_ that would be so embarrassing? She knew better than any of these English how to skate. "I know very well what I'm doing," she snapped. "We skated every winter in Connecticut."

He sighed. "Of course. I know."

It did not placate her, and Cora stalked off onto the ice, skating at first with some of the other ladies before drifting further out on the lake, nearer to the oak tree…past the oak tree…enjoying the silence, enjoying a few minutes without Robert breathing down her neck or regarding her skeptically. She did love him—she could not _help_ but love him—but she was quite certain that he did not love her, and his apparent lack of confidence in her had grown wearing in recent months.

"Cora!" She twirled around at Robert's sudden shout. "Not out there!" She could hear fear and panic in his voice, and, not comprehending, she stopped and stared at him. It was this standing still, this concentration of her weight on one spot on the thin ice, that did it. She heard a soft breaking sound beneath her feet and glanced down, only to see a crack growing in the ice.

And then, before she could think to move, the ice was gone and she shrieked as she plunged into freezing water.

She would not have described it as cold. _Cold_ was bath water she had let sit too long before getting in, the ocean on a spring day not quite warm enough for swimming, raindrops on a chilly November night. This was not _cold_. This was simply _pain_. It was as though she had been immersed not in water but in a swarm of bees that stung her from head to toe, and she fought desperately against the weight of her skirts and skates to swim back to the surface. Her head broke through to shouts and chaos from the rest of the party, all hanging back a safe distance, presumably debating how best to retrieve her without falling in themselves.

She didn't care about that. She didn't want to wait for someone to come and get her; she only wanted _out_ of this torturous cold, and she grasped in vain at the ice around her. Her bare fingers were quickly losing their dexterity, but after what seemed an eternity, with her heavy skates making the water feel like quicksand, she was able to get hold of the edge of the unbroken ice. Yet she did not, she realized with growing desperation, have the strength to pull herself out.

* * *

"Cora!" In turning to look for her, Robert had discovered with horror that Cora was far, far, _far_ beyond where he knew the ice was safe. "Not out there!" Had she not been listening when he'd told them all to stay on this side of the oak tree? And wasn't it obvious why, even though he'd never mentioned it directly? The lake grew deeper at that point and was much slower to freeze, so he didn't trust the ice's strength. Everyone would have understood that.

But it wasn't obvious, not to her, he realized with a sickening certainty. She was used to much colder winters in the northeastern United States; frozen lakes there were _frozen_ , and there was no question of thin ice.

He had barely formed the thought before the ice was breaking and she was falling, a frightened shriek shattering the air. A clamor erupted around him, with suggestions of finding a rope— _yes, but where?_ —to toss out to her, or making a chain of scarves, or was there a large piece of wood or a stick she might grab?

Robert heard it all distantly, his heart pounding as his body begged to rush to Cora. How long had she been in the water already? Fifteen seconds? Twenty? How long _could_ a person last in freezing water? He had no idea, but surely not long enough for some sort of rescue equipment to be fetched from the house. And how would she grasp whatever was thrown to her? Surely her fingers were growing numb…

"Robert, you mustn't go out there," his mother said, reading his mind. She had appeared by his side and laid a steadying hand on his arm. "You'll be of no help to her if you fall in, too."

Logically, he knew this: if the ice had been too thin to support Cora, it was surely too thin to support him. And then there would be two of them to rescue, plus he would be perfectly useless in assisting in whatever method was chosen if he were in the water himself.

But then she shouted his name, a frightened, desperate, pain-filled cry of _"Robert!"_ He was hardly aware of what he was doing as he shook off his mother's arm and raced headlong across the ice. When he reached the edge of what he considered safe, he dropped to his stomach so that he could slither, snake-like, toward her in hopes that spreading his weight out would give him a better chance of the ice holding.

It worked, and after what felt like hours, he reached her and, with difficulty, managed to pull her out, surprised at how heavy her soaked clothing made her. _She's safe now,_ he told himself as she lay beside him on the ice, _she'll be all right_ …and yet he couldn't ease the terror that had clenched around his heart, and listening to Cora's near-hyperventilation was not helping. She closed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing, but even these deeper breaths still had a troubling shakiness to them.

"Cora." Robert laid a trembling hand on her shoulder, and she turned to look at him, a drained, spent look in her eyes. "It's not safe to stand up here," he said. _How he wished he could scoop her up in his arms and carry her off the ice!_ "Can you slide on your belly—the way I did to get to you—a little ways?"

She nodded slowly and stretched an arm out, giving him a view of her hands. He'd grasped them to pull her out of the water but had been too blinded by terror then to notice how red they were. They were bare—she'd had a muff in place of gloves, and it must have been lost to the water—and he realized with horror that they'd had no protection from the freezing pond at all.

"Here, take my gloves," he said, yanking them off and passing them to her. Yet her fingers were clumsy, which frightened him further as he watched her fumble with the gloves, and he slipped them onto her hands himself. They were far too big for her, but it seemed better than nothing.

* * *

"I'm so cold," Cora said softly. After she had at last been helped off the ice, Robert had switched his skates for his boots and swept her into his arms, cradling her like a newborn kitten as he'd carried her to one of the sleighs that had brought the party to the pond. She was now wrapped in his coat and the sleigh's blankets while he held her tightly—more tightly than she could remember ever having been held. It was the first moment she'd had to focus on how cold and wet and miserable she was—she felt her very blood had been frozen—and she could not hold back a dry sob.

"Shh." She felt Robert pass his hand through her still-wet hair. "Don't cry, darling."

She bit her lip to still its trembling and buried her face in his chest. She didn't want to cry, either. She didn't want to get any wetter anywhere.

"Are you hurt at all?" he asked, and she felt the vibration of his speech against her cheek.

"No…that is, I–I'm not sure," she said. "My hands…they sting a bit." They'd been numb at first, but after a bit of time inside her husband's gloves, the numbness had shifted to a slightly painful tingling.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "We'll be home soon. I'm not sure if you heard, but Dr. Lincoln—"

"—is meeting us there," she murmured. She had heard a footman tell Robert that another had run ahead, as soon as she'd fallen through, in search of the village doctor.

Lincoln had indeed arrived before they did, and he immediately rejected the hot bath Cora had been longing for. ("Certainly not! It's not healthy for the heart to raise body temperature so quickly. No bathing in hot water until you're already completely comfortable, my lady.") Instead, he'd merely ordered her to be dressed in dry clothes, wrapped in thick blankets, and sent to bed to recover from the ordeal. "Get her warm, but get her warm slowly and naturally," he'd instructed.

"Is this the best that can be done?" Robert asked the doctor as her maid piled extra blankets on top of Cora, who was propped up in bed. "Is there nothing that could warm her more quickly?"

Cora could hear the stress in his voice, and somehow it warmed her slightly. She was still shivering and silently agreed that a few blankets would not help nearly fast enough.

"We don't want her warmed more quickly, my lord," Lincoln said, not unkindly. "It's not safe—too much of a shock for the heart."

She saw Robert chewing his bottom lip, his eyes darting between her and the doctor. "Do you think—that is, would it help—or would it be too much if I sat down with her? To warm her?" Her heart leapt into her throat at the thought of being held again the way she had been in the sleigh.

Lincoln shook his head absently. "No, I shouldn't think that would be a problem. Lady Downton, might I have a look at your hands?"

She extended them, feeling the bed shift as Robert climbed in beside her. He pressed his body close to hers but did not put his arms around her, and she swallowed her disappointment. AT least he was warm.

The doctor examined her fingers and diagnosed a mild case of frostnip—the earliest stage of frostbite, but not nearly as serious as the latter condition. It should heal perfectly within a few days, he said, as long as she did not let her hands get chilled again in the meantime. Easy enough, she thought—she was still so cold that she couldn't imagine wanting to go outside again until July. Her fingers, though, were the one bit of her that he did want warmed quickly, and he sent her maid to fetch a bowl of warm water.

Cora hissed in pain as she slipped her hands into it—they'd stung before, but this felt as though she'd stuck them straight into a fire. "I'm sorry, my lady—thawing's never a pleasant process," she heard the doctor say distantly. She was distracted by the steadying hand, a thumb stroking soothingly back and forth, that Robert had suddenly laid on her hip beneath the covers.

At last the torture in her fingers eased, and the doctor dried her hands then wrapped each finger in thick bandages. She wondered how she'd manage to do much of anything in the coming days—she'd be far too clumsy to take meals anywhere but her room. Lincoln promised to return the next day for another look and instructed Robert that he was to be fetched immediately at the first sign of a cold or a fever.

As soon as the door shut behind the doctor, Robert's arms wrapped around her, drawing her close, and she murmured in surprise. "I didn't think he'd ever leave," he said. Had Lincoln's presence been what had kept him from holding her? She was not sure how to ask. "But you're still cold," Robert went on, and she couldn't deny it. "Let's lie down so you're all the way under the covers."

He released her long enough for them both to lie down and for him to draw the heavy blankets up to their shoulders, and then he pulled her close to him again, fitting his body alongside hers as he clasped an arm firmly around her waist. She sighed softly, both at the pleasure of his warmth and at the contentment of lying in his arms, and he rubbed his hand up and down her back, trying to warm her faster.

"Thank you," she said at last, almost afraid to break the silence. "And thank you for coming to rescue me."

He kissed her forehead. "What else was I going to do when you called for me?"

"Called for you?" She didn't recall that she'd done anything but shriek when she'd first fallen in.

"Yes, you shouted my name. Don't you remember?"

She shook her head, marveling that shouting for him was enough of a reflex that she hadn't even known she'd done it.

He frowned. "I know I heard it."

"I–I don't remember much," she said, fumbling for an explanation that did not involve his name sitting reflexively on the tip of her tongue.

"I'm glad for that," he said, pressing another kiss to her forehead. "It must have been terrifying."

In truth, bits of the incident were beginning to blur, but what was sharp and clear—what she suspected would _always_ be sharp and clear—was the image of her careful, cautious husband rushing headlong across dangerously thin ice to rescue her. She blushed at the memory of his "Be careful" earlier that day. Clearly, he had known the ice was dangerous further out, and she had misunderstood his meaning.

But before she could say anything, Robert spoke again. "Darling, how are your hands? Do they still sting?"

She shook her head. "Not like they did in the hot water. It's only a dull ache now."

She felt him take hold of her wrist under the blankets, and then he raised her right hand to his lips, brushing feather-light kisses to the ends of her bandaged fingers. "I'm so sorry, my sweet."

"It wasn't your fault," she said. "You did tell me not to skate out that far."

"Yes, but I didn't explain why, and you didn't understand. There was no such thing as partially-frozen lakes in Connecticut, was there?"

She smiled. "No, but that isn't your fault either."

In the silence that followed, he began to stroke her still-damp hair, and she reflected on his earlier words, letting her eyes drift shut. _Be careful_ had had nothing to do with any fear that she would embarrass him or with thinking her a bull in a china cabinet…perhaps it never did. Perhaps it was only ever about her comfort, about his worry that anything unconventional in her would only subject her to more cutting remarks from his mother's set. For she was beginning to wonder, as she remembered his run across the ice, remembered the way he had held her in the sleigh…the way he was holding her _now_ …if perhaps he did love her. He certainly seemed to care for her a great deal.

"Cora?" he said softly.

"Yes?" She opened her eyes.

"Would you like me to run you a bath? I think you're warm enough now that it won't do any harm, and you might feel a bit better."

She had longed for a bath earlier, but now she couldn't conceive of anything that would make her feel any better than she already did in his arms. And what she wanted now, as the exhaustion from the afternoon's ordeal set in, was sleep. "I think I'd rather stay here," she said. "That is, if you don't mind—if you'll stay with me." Robert did, on occasion, spend the night in her bed, but only when he'd fallen asleep just after making love, and she was not sure how he would take to her request. "I was thinking of taking a nap…but if you'd rather go back down to—"

"Of course I'll stay." He passed his hand over her shoulder and down her back in a long caress. "You gave me quite a scare earlier, and I'd like to stay and fuss over you a bit longer, if I may."

She blushed. "You may." She wanted to lap up every bit of his affection like a starving kitten.

"I also think an afternoon nap with my wife sounds like the best idea in the world right now, and a bit of rest will do you good. The gong will wake us for dinner."

 _Yes, dinner._ "You'll make my excuses downstairs, of course."

"There's hardly an excuse to be made. Everyone saw you fall; they'll all expect you to be upstairs resting. I don't think they'll blink twice at my absence, either. My parents are the hosts, not us."

"You haven't got to stay through dinner," she said, suddenly uneasy. She'd planned to ask her maid for a simple dinner of bread and cheese and perhaps an apple. She could manage all that without having to fumble with silverware, but she doubted it would be very ladylike.

"Yes, I do. How are you planning to eat if I don't?"

Well, that was the _point_ , as far as she was concerned. "I doubt I can hold a knife and fork," she said softly, looking away from him.

"Of course you can't," he said, as though this had been obvious all along. "So you'll need me."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, feeling her face redden with embarrassment that she had not understood.

"You don't mind, do you? That is, if you don't want—"

Here they were again—one or both of them always seemed afraid to cross some invisible boundary. It was strange, she often thought, that she should be so physically intimate with this man and yet lack so much in real intimacy.

"No, I don't mind at all," she said, feeling a warmth in her chest that had nothing to do with the blankets as she contemplated the idea of him feeding her. "I think it would be lovely, and very sweet of you. Thank you."

"Shall we sleep, then?" he asked after a moment's silence. "Before any more of the afternoon gets away from us?"

She nodded and snuggled closer, nuzzling her face into the hollow at the base of his throat, made bold by his affection. _Perhaps he does love me,_ she thought as her eyelids grew heavy. _Perhaps he does._


	14. It's not heavy, I'm stronger than I look

It has been hot in the train car, and Robert knows there's likely to be a slight breeze as soon as he steps out onto the platform. Yet it's nowhere near as hot as it was under the African sun, and he's in no hurry to leave the cocoon of his seat. He knows Cora's out there.

Not that he's looked. As they'd approached King's Cross, he had moved away from the window, afraid to catch a glimpse of her and thus let her catch a glimpse of him. Ironic, given how many months he's longed to see her, but seeing Cora…talking with Cora… _returning_ to Cora are terrifying prospects now, and he'd rather wait it out just a few minutes longer.

But he does know she's out there, knows it beyond a shadow of a doubt. She would have received the telegram telling her he was injured—he tries not to think of this, tries not to imagine her fear and her grief at the news—and then of course she received his letters and the time and date of his train. He can picture her marking the days off on the little calendar she keeps in her room, instructing O'Brien to pack her cases days ahead of time in her excitement, and at last arriving hours early at the station to wait in eager anticipation.

It's this eagerness that troubles him. He is not returning to Cora the same way he left; he is a broken man, an injured man. Yes, the doctors have assured him that he will recover from the bullet he took to the arm and that he will not be a lifelong cripple, but at the moment, he can barely lift a full glass of scotch with his right arm, much less one of the two travel cases he has with him. He'll have to call for a porter immediately, his first humiliation in front of his wife. He's returning to her as a man who will be thoroughly useless in estate work for weeks, and she will have to carry on alone as she's been forced to do for far too long already…now with a helpless husband to nurse.

And he knows that his arm is the least of it, a mere outward sign of the injuries within. He'd gone off into battle a fearless man, a pillar of strength that had always protected and supported the delicate rose he'd married. He is returning as a man who jumps at the sound of a slammed door, a man who is suddenly drenched in a cold sweat when he remembers the cries of the wounded, a man who wakes screaming at night from horrors he does not know how he will ever explain. He dreads the first time it happens with his wife lying beside him more than he dreads the dreams themselves.

She is surely expecting the peaceful, calm man who left, a husband who will readily take up the burdens she has carried alone for so long, a lover who will wrap her in his arms tonight and soothe and comfort and protect her. Cora _deserves_ that, dammit. And— _God_ —how badly he wants to give it to her.

He ought to go down. He _owes_ it to her to go down. She's probably pacing the platform now, worried about what's gone wrong and why he doesn't seem to have been on this train. Probably sick with worry. Probably weeping. He _must_ go down.

But before he can stand, he hears a soft, sweet voice call, "Robert?" And there she is, standing in the doorway of his compartment. "When you didn't get off, I thought perhaps I should start checking the cars myself," she says quietly.

Has she always been this calm, this still, this gentle? Or is he only noticing it now because it's such a contrast from the harsh world he's come from?

He stands and reaches for her, and instantly he has one arm around her—the best he can do right now, and he curses his injury—her body pressed to his, her face against his neck, and she murmurs softly at the contact after so many months apart. And then it's him that's weeping—silently, of course, and he tells himself she doesn't know, hasn't seen, but he notes that she has begun to stroke his hair lightly, and she does not let him go until his tears have ceased.

"We have all the time in the world together back at Grantham House," she says when she steps away, kissing his cheek. "And then we can show each other how glad we are to be together again."

Spotting the two cases, she stoops and lifts one. "Can you manage with the other?" she asks as though this is the most natural thing in the world.

But it's not, and he can't seem to get his gaping mouth to close. "Cora," he says at last, "Cora, you…you shouldn't…I…let me get…it's…"

She smiles softly and shakes her head. "It's not heavy, Robert," she says, and he hears in her words a reference to far more than his bag. "I'm stronger than I look."


	15. There is enough room for both of us

_"Cora!"_ His young wife starts awake at his exclamation, and he instantly regrets it, but he was so shocked to see her. To see anyone, really.

He's returned early from a day in London and had planned to sleep in the city, but his errands ended earlier than he expected and he thought, _why not?_ And so he caught an evening train and returned home.

The household was obviously in bed when he arrived, and Robert climbed the stairs alone and let himself into his dressing room…where he'd found Cora, sound asleep in his bed.

"What are you doing?" he asks. He doesn't mean to say it angrily—he simply can't understand why she's chosen to sleep in here when she has a far prettier and more feminine room twice the size of his just next door. Yet she shrinks back in his bed, pulling the covers to her chin, as though she's embarrassed to be clad only in a thin nightgown while he's fully dressed.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I didn't think you'd be home tonight."

"I wasn't going to be," he begins, but before he can say anything more, she's tossing the sheets aside and getting up to wrap herself in the dressing gown that was resting at the foot of his bed.

"I'll go," she says. "I really am sorry."

"Wait." She stops and looks at him, her eyes still wide. He knows he wants an explanation, but he's also not sure he'll want her to go even once she's given it. There had been something very lovely about the sight of her curled up in his bed… "Why were you in here?" he asks, keeping his voice gentle. "I'm not upset; I just don't understand…why would you have fallen asleep in my room?"

She drops her eyes and mumbles something about a pillow.

"I'm sorry?"

Cora looks up, her cheeks pink. "Your pillow," she says softly. "It…smells like you. And I liked...having that near."

"You mean…you missed me?"

She shrugs, but it seems an odd explanation to him, when they are never together for sleep anyway. But is sleeping together what she _wants_? he suddenly wonders. Is it what _he_ wants? He has been finding it increasingly difficult to rise from Cora's bed after making love, but he's blamed this on the falling autumn temperatures and the accompanying chill in the house. It was warmer next to Cora, he's told himself. That was all.

"But you're here now, so I'll go," she says, breaking into his thoughts, and turns toward the door.

"No." He surprises himself by reaching out and catching her arm. "No…you don't have to go."

"You'll be needing your bed," she says.

"There is enough room for both of us," he tells her. "Lie back down, and I'll join you."

This isn't proper, he doesn't think, but he suspects she won't mind, and if her smile is any indication, she doesn't. And she had looked so very _soft_ in his bed that he could not help wanting to curl up next to her.

She climbs back in, and he undresses quickly, without calling for his valet, then lies down beside her. It's a small bed, designed for one and not two, and she shifts away slightly to make room for him.

But surely they'll be more comfortable if… Robert wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her to him, and Cora sighs as she settles against his body. She is warm and soft, and yes, this is much more comfortable. And that's all this is about, he reminds himself. Just simple comfort.


	16. Take a deep breath

She chokes awake, disoriented at the tears coursing down her face and the sobs tearing through her chest. But of course she would be weeping, would have wept in her sleep, when she's cried in her dream. That's always how it is. Every night.

She's been having one of the many dreams she's had time and time again in recent weeks—the one where she is alone in the house, hearing Sybil call her name, as she searches the empty rooms with growing desperation, fighting the leaden legs so common to dreamers that won't let her run. Then something in her subconscious suddenly _knows_ , and the tears come, and then at last she stumbles on the body.

She always wakes then, choking on her own sobs, barely able to breathe past their strength. She fights against the tangled sheets to sit up, as though sitting might somehow let her draw air into her lungs. As though she cares.

For she's thought more than once how good it might be to suffocate. How easy, to close her eyes and let the ever-present stabbing in her chest fade as she slowly slips away.

Yet she does draw breaths, small, short ones that war with her tears, and she bends forward, instinctively curling in on herself. For a moment, she thinks she'll be sick; she has been, some nights.

Suddenly, there is a hand on each of her arms, grasping firmly, and she freezes, surprised and a bit frightened, for isn't she alone? She's been sleeping alone for so long now—oh, but she isn't tonight, not anymore. Not after their conversation with Dr. Clarkson at the dower house.

She and Robert walked back to Downton in silence—an almost embarrassed silence after their long embrace. She went on to hover near him all afternoon, hovering without clinging, wanting him but awash in guilt and convinced she had no right to him. And he tread carefully, not touching her, barely making eye contact with her, in an uncertainty that she was not sure how to read. He was hesitant and awkward when he arrived in her room that evening, asking if he might stay, she nodded, and he climbed in and lay with his back to her.

"Cora," she hears his voice say now, caressing the syllables as though her name is a sacred prayer. "Cora, you need to breathe."

She knows that, she does know that. But the room is spinning around her, and she shakes her head, not sure what she's protesting beyond her own desperation.

"Shh," he says, his hands running up and down her arms. "Lean back against me." She feels him tug her gently, coaxing her into his arms, and she lets him pull her towards him, her back pressed to his chest.

"Take a deep breath," he tells her. "Breathe with me." She can feel his slow, steady breaths against her back, and she manages a long, deep breath of her own, and slowly the room stills as she collapses against him, letting her head fall back onto his shoulder. She's still weeping, but more calmly now, and she feels him lightly kiss her cheek.

"Oh my darling," he whispers, his own voice cracking, "I am so, _so_ sorry."

But all she can think is how glad she is that, at last, someone else is holding her up.


	17. Stay there, I'm coming to get you

AN: So this is modern AU, which I've never done before. It's also not how I've handled the other chapters in this fic - I've been working only with events that did happen in canon or seem likely to have happened in precanon, and this is neither of those things. It was my first thought with this prompt, though, and it ran away with me. I hope you like it!

* * *

Robert wakes up slowly at the vibration of his phone in his pocket. Disoriented, he blinks awake—when did he fall asleep? And is that the ten o'clock news on the screen, not the movie he was watching? He pulls his phone out, and the screen confirms that the time is, in fact, 22:07. And it's Cora.

If it's this late, why isn't Cora already home? She told him she would be home late, that Simon Bricker, the gallery's newest hire, wanted her to accompany him to a special exhibit at the Tate that he thought might serve as inspiration for the museum's spring plans. But why would they have needed to stay there until ten?

Robert's disliked Simon since their introduction at the holiday party two months ago, and his distaste has only grown as Simon and Cora have been thrown together on more and more projects and she's come home with more and more glowing anecdotes of lunch dates and drinks after work.

"And all these conversations have been about art?" he's snapped. "Because in an entire museum worth of staff, he can find no one else who shares an interest in art, I'm sure."

"Don't be jealous; it doesn't suit you," she's snapped in reply. And he's tried to keep his irritation to himself, because with every comment, Cora only seems to spend more time with Simon.

So he grumbles to himself as he touches his screen to pick up the call. "Yes?" He knows he sounds grouchy, and he doesn't particularly care.

"Robert?" Cora's voice is high and unnatural. "Oh, thank God I got through this time!"

He feels a prickling of guilt at the thought that she's likely tried to call multiple times as he slept, and clearly something is wrong. Of course she hasn't been sitting around flirting with Simon Bricker all this time.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

She doesn't answer, and he pictures her shivering as she tries to walk miles home in high heels after a Tube shutdown, or sitting alone in an emergency room with a broken wrist after slipping on a patch of ice.

"Cora!" he says, frightened at her silence. "Tell me what's wrong! Where are you?"

"I'm sorry," she says, and he hears a tremor in her voice this time. "I'm just—I'm really scared."

Scared? What did she have to be scared of? "Where are you?" he repeats.

"The bathroom."

"What bathroom?" Was she ill?

"Sorry. Simon's bathroom."

What? None of this computes. "What on earth are you doing in Simon Bricker's bathroom?"

More silence, and fear—he's not sure of what—slowly squeezes his heart.

"We–we had a drink after we finished at the Tate," she finally says. "And then he said he wanted to show me some sketches he'd done up for the layout of the next exhibit that were back at his flat, and it wasn't far, just a short Tube ride, and it was on my way home anyway, so I said yes, because–because I'm _stupid_ , I guess—"

" _Cora,"_ he says firmly, but he's too frightened to try to argue against the insult, and she sweeps on.

"And when we got here, he offered me another drink, and I said no, because we'd already _had_ drinks, but _he_ started drinking, and after he showed me the pages, I tried to leave, but he–he wouldn't let me—"

"Did he hurt you?" he asks quietly, standing up now. It's almost physically painful to raise the question.

"No, no, he just—he grabbed my arm, and sort of pulled me back down onto the couch, and told me not to go just yet, and then I tried to get up again, and he held me down—harder this time—and I realized he wasn't going to let me go anywhere. And then he–he put his arm around me, and he…" She pauses, and Robert holds his breath. "Hetouchedmybreast," she says, all in one breath, as though to force the words out quickly, and Robert grips his phone so hard he's surprised it doesn't shatter.

"So I told him I needed to use the restroom, and he let me get up, and I locked myself in _here_ , because I was afraid–I was afraid of what he'd do if I tried to get to the door."

"Stay there," he says, quickly checking his pocket for the car keys. "I'm coming to get you." Without shoes, without a coat, he dashes for the door and down the steps to the car. How long is Simon going to leave her in peace in the bathroom? He's under no illusion that a locked door will protect her: he remembers the man as being roughly his own size and strength, and surely a thin door and a little household lock is no great obstacle.

"Where–where does he live?" he asks, realizing he has no more information than "a short Tube ride from the Tate." "Do you have an address?"

"Yes," she gulps then rattles it off. "I looked it up online to give it to the police."

The police! He thanks God she's got a better head in a crisis than he does, for surely the police can beat him there. He _hopes_ they can beat him; he's a good twenty minutes away. "Good, you've called the police."

"Yes, before I called you—"

"Did the operator not stay on the line with you?"

"She offered, but I–I wanted to talk–to talk to _you_ ," she says, her voice cracking.

His knotted stomach twists in on itself again at her words. He's in the car now and _flying_ through London's streets, ignoring red lights, praying to whomever might be listening that either he or the police can get there in time.

"You're all right," he says. He's trying to make his voice soothing, but he doubts he's succeeding, because his own panic is beginning to swallow him. "You're all right, and the police are on their way. _I'm_ on my way. Just hold on, sweetheart."

"My battery's almost dead," she says suddenly. "My phone battery. I know you're always telling me—"

Yes, he's lost track of how many times he's expressed irritation at Cora's inability to remember to keep her phone charged. "Never mind about that—"

He's interrupted by a soft beep that proves the truth of her words. "I'm afraid I'll lose you—"

"Let's not worry about the phone until it does die, okay?" he says. Although in truth, he's terrified of losing her now, too. There's nothing he can do over the phone, and he knows that, but somehow he feels like he can protect her as long as they're still talking.

"I should have listened to you," she says, her voice thick with tears. "You're _always_ telling me not to run the battery so low, that there might be an emergency. And I shouldn't–I shouldn't have come here! I shouldn't have even been with Simon. You kept telling me—"

"Cora, _none_ of this is your fault. _None_ of it. You are not to blame for anything that's happened, and you won't be to blame for anything that might happen. Let's just be glad that you had enough power to look up an address and call the police."

There's another beep of the dying battery, and she sniffs, but before she can reply, he hears a muffled voice in the background, and suddenly there's a vise gripping his chest, and he can't breathe. Is that Bricker? Is he in there with her? Is he about to…

"I'm sorry, Simon!" he hears her call out sweetly and desperately. "It's my stomach—I think it was the shrimp I ate at that pub. I–I'll be out in a few minutes!"

After seconds that seem like hours, she comes back on the line. "He's gone," she says breathlessly. "I think he believed me. But he–he was rattling the doorknob, and—oh, God, I'm scared, Robert!"

"Is there anything in there that you can use as a weapon?" The thought of Simon with his hand on the doorknob has made the situation suddenly even more dire in his mind.

"I was thinking about the showerhead," she says, with a hysterical giggle that's quickly followed by a dry sob. "But I don't—do you think I could hit him with that?" Another beep. "Would that do any damage?"

Maybe. Possibly. It would depend on how hard she hit him, or where on his head she hit him. If she had _time_ to hit him, if she had surprise on her side.

But suddenly, the thought of her trying to fight with Bricker frightens him even more. It's only on television, Robert suspects, that weak amateurs knock out their attackers with a quick blow from a household object. Cora's wielding of the showerhead strikes him more as careless swatting at a wasp, a wasp that would only be made angrier.

And would he…would Bricker kill her? How violent is he? How _drunk_ is he?

"Cora, I'm not sure you…" He trails off, not sure how to finish the sentence. What kind of advice was, _Why don't you just let him have his way with you so you're not hurt worse?_

"Robert, I'm scared," she says again, and he hears her start to cry. "I'm _so_ scared."

"Sweetheart…" He wants to hold her, wants to wrap her up and protect her, but there's still several miles between them.

 _Beep._ That awful battery again. "How far away are you?" she sobs. "How much longer?"

"I'm still a few minutes…I'm hurrying, darling."

"Do be careful," she says, and he wants to cry himself at the thought that she's bothering to worry about him right now. "Don't–don't hit anything."

"Don't worry about me," he tells her.

"I can't help it," she says, and he hears another sob. "I love you."

His eyes do water this time, and he swipes at them furiously to clear his vision. "I love you too, sweetheart. I love you _so_ much. You know that, right?" he asks, his chest tightening at the thought of what Bricker might do if the police don't hurry. "You know how much I love you?"

And then there's a terrible ripping, shattering, smashing sound, a crash that sounds like a door breaking, and he feels as though his heart's being torn in two. _I'll kill this man,_ he tells himself savagely. _I'll break his neck if he lays a hand on her._ But it's no comfort, because he knows that tearing Bricker's limbs off will not put Cora's soul back together after what's about to happen.

 _"Robert,"_ she hisses, her voice strained.

Then the line cuts off. "This wireless customer is not available," a chipper, computerized voice tells him. "If you would like to make a call—"

But the rest of the useless message is lost on him as he swears at the top of his lungs and beats on his steering wheel.

* * *

Robert drives like a madman the rest of the way—he imagines he's collected a thousand pounds' worth of tickets from traffic cameras—but it still feels like the longest ride he's ever had. When he swerves onto Bricker's street, it's immediately clear which building is the right one by the police car, its lights flashing, parked in front of it. So they have arrived, but was it soon enough? How much time was there between Bricker's bursting through the door and the arrival of the police? How far did he go?

He's ready to vomit as he slowly opens the door to the apartment building…and there's Cora, sitting on a small sofa with two police officers in an otherwise-empty lobby. She looks frightened and pale, and she's wrapped her thin arms around herself, the fingers of her left hand toying frantically with a small thread at the end of her sleeve as one of the officers makes notes. But her clothes are not torn or even askew, her hair is not out of place, and her face is not bruised. Has nothing happened?

She and the police turn at his entrance. "My husband," she says shakily. "This is my husband."

One of the men stands and nods to Robert. "Mr. Crawley. Mrs. Crawley was reluctant to leave for the station until you'd arrived. After we kicked in the door—"

"What?" he says sharply. Was that the noise he heard? Did Simon Bricker never make it into the bathroom at all?

"He was drunk, Robert," Cora says suddenly. "So drunk the police found him passed out on the couch." She begins a laugh which turns into a strangled sob, and then she flies into his arms.

"You're all right," he whispers as he embraces her tightly, not fully believing it. " _Are_ you all right? He hasn't hurt you?"

She shakes her head, still sobbing, and presses her face against his neck. He's holding her as tightly as he can, but it's as though it's not quite enough, and she almost seems to be burrowing into his chest.

"You're all right," he repeats, rubbing her back. "You're safe now. I'm right here, and you're safe." He's so happy to have her in his arms, whole and uninjured, that he'd like to weep himself, but he'll save his own emotions for later.

"Sir," he hears one of the officers say over the noise of Cora's tears, "if you and Mrs. Crawley would prefer to come by the station in the morning, we can make a report tomorrow."

"We'll do that," he says, thankful that it's obvious that Cora is in no state to give further details tonight. "And thank you. Thank you to you both."

He's quite uninterested in details himself, quite uninterested in police reports, quite uninterested even in what's been done with Bricker. He knows he'll care later—tomorrow, he knows he'll want the man locked up forever for what he's put Cora through tonight—but at the moment, he can't care about anything beyond the woman in his arms.

"Let's get you home," he whispers with a kiss to the top of her head, and she nods. He retrieves her coat from the couch and helps her into it, then leads her out to the car while she clutches his hand. She grabs hold of it again once they're both seated, and he determines immediately that he'll be driving one-handed. It can't be nearly as dangerous as the trip here was.

"Thank you," she says suddenly as they turn off Bricker's street. They're the first words she's spoken since her explanation of Bricker's collapse, and they seem out of place somehow. He's done nothing.

"Thank you," she says again, wiping at the tears that are still flowing. "For coming to get me."

Of course he came. He wishes he'd been there sooner. He wishes he had a helicopter.

But at the moment, all he can think is how eternally gratefully he is that she's safe.

And all he can do is raise her hand to his lips and kiss it reverently.


	18. Just because

"Are you ready to go down?" Robert asked. He was seated in a chair in Cora's room just before dinner, looking on as she examined her reflection in her full-length mirror, Baxter having left them a few moments earlier.

"Mmm, one minute," she murmured, distracted.

He was in no hurry, for his thoughts were happily focused on how absolutely breathtaking Cora looked tonight in a shimmering silver evening dress that accentuated her curves. When corsets had fallen out of fashion, Robert's first reaction had been discomfort at the strangeness of it all—he'd grown accustomed to all women being the same artificial shape in their clothes, and suddenly…suddenly they weren't. And then Cora had quit wearing hers in recent months, and he had not been able to get over how wonderfully _soft_ she seemed without it. Some days he nearly had to sit on his hands to keep from reaching out to touch her in the drawing room in a way he previously would only have done in their bedroom, and the frequent realization that it was _her_ he was looking at, not the standardized body assigned by her corset, made him blush with pleasure.

"You look lovely," he said at last.

"I look," Cora said with disgust, " _pregnant_."

It was such a strange statement to his ears that he didn't know how to respond. "But you're not pregnant," he said stupidly. "We're in our fifties."

Her eyes flashed, and he realized instantly that he'd said precisely the wrong thing. "Yes, _thank you_ for that observation, Robert," she snapped. "I'm fat, and so old and dried up that everyone knows it's nothing _but_ fat."

"Cora, darling, I didn't mean…"

"I know," she sighed, her anger evaporating as quickly as it had come. "I know you didn't mean that the way it sounded. And I'm sorry—it's not your fault. It's just…I hate the way I look without a corset, but I can't wear one or it would be strange, and…" She sighed, giving herself another harsh look in the mirror and prodding her stomach. "I _hate_ my body," she said miserably.

His chest ached sharply at her words. How wrong it seemed that she would hate a body that he loved so dearly—the thought made him angry, not at her but at a world that had led her to think this way.

"I'd want to strike anyone else who said that about you," he said gruffly, "but it wouldn't seem fair to hit a blind man."

She forced a humorless laugh but did not look at him. "It's all right, Robert. You haven't got—"

"No," he said, getting up and coming to stand behind her. "It most certainly is _not_ all right." He slipped his arms around her waist, and she stiffened at the contact. "Your body is absolutely beautiful, and there's no reason for you to hate it. I don't like to think you're berating yourself while I'm sitting over there thinking how pretty you look."

"You haven't got to come and hold me and tell me how nice I look just because I said all that," she said, and he could see hurt darkening her eyes in her reflection. "It doesn't make me feel any better to be patronized, you know."

Cora tried to pull away, but he held her firmly. "I know. And I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't _already_ been thinking about how much I wanted to hold you before you spoke at all."

"Really?" she asked skeptically, their eyes meeting in the mirror.

"Really." He pressed a kiss to her neck.

"Why?"

He hesitated, not sure how she'd take to hearing that his thoughts had focused on just how much he liked her _without_ her corset. "Just because."

She raised an eyebrow, but she was relaxing in his arms. He moved closer, giving her a gentle squeeze—how nice to be able to squeeze her without her corset's stiffness in the way—and she sighed in response. "Because why?"

"You might not believe me, but I was thinking that perhaps I like you even better without a corset, and thinking how beautiful you look always makes me want to hold you."

"Was that really what you were thinking?" she asked, but he heard curiosity, not disbelief, in her voice, and she blushed slightly. "Heavens, Robert—"

"It _was_. I _like_ seeing your curves, I like seeing that you have a shape, I like that you're so beautiful and so perfect you don't need to bother with a corset. The first time you came downstairs without one…Cora, you took my breath away. I thought, 'My God, that's all _her_ ,' when I looked at you, and I couldn't quite believe anyone could be so flawless."

"I'm not flawless," she interrupted softly. "I—look at my stomach." She pulled their hands away to display her middle. "It—it's been like that at least since Edith." There was, he couldn't deny, a slight couple inches resting on her abdomen that her corset used to flatten, but...but he loved that bit of her too, just as much as the rest. Perhaps _more_ than the rest. Could she not understand?

"Cora," he said, bringing his hand back to her stomach and stroking it, "I _love_ that you are the mother of our children. I _love_ that _all_ of our children have rested here." He saw her swallow hard at the reference, and he kissed her shoulder. He could well remember how magical her belly had seemed when it had first grown round with Mary, and how awed he had been to kiss it and caress it, but in later years he had been more amazed to think that it had also housed the two they had lost, that Cora had held for months a daughter and a son that he would never meet.

"I do not think either of these things is a _flaw_ ," he finished.

She covered his hand, pressing it with her own, and he held her in silence for a moment as she leaned against him.

"You're much softer without your corset, too," he said softly, giving her another squeeze. "It's nice to hold _you_ , and not the bones of some unfortunate whale."

She giggled. "Robert!"

He pressed on, leaning forward to nibble at her ear, and she shivered in his arms as he took the edge of it between his lips.

"You know what else I like about this new fashion?" he whispered. "It's much, much easier to get you undressed with no corset in the way."

"Robert!" she said, swatting at the hand that had begun to creep toward the buttons on the back of her dress. "Baxter's _just_ put this on me, and you're going to make us late for dinner!"

"But I'm much faster now!" he protested.

"No," she said, laughing as she pulled herself out of his arms. "Even without the corset, we can't, not now."

He sighed, and she kissed his cheek with a mischievous smile. "Don't look like that, dearest. I didn't say there wouldn't be time _later_!"


	19. You're warm

She wondered how long he would stay this time. How long before he would kiss her good night and slip off to his own bed. How long before she'd be lying here alone again.

Cora sighed and closed her eyes, willing herself to fall asleep before Robert had time to leave. They'd been married three months, and she'd never fallen asleep in Robert's arms—a fact that demonstrated how short a time he stayed after making love as well as how hesitant she was to miss a second of time with him.

It was so very comfortable to lie here with him, she thought. So very comfortable to rest her head on his chest, to feel those muscular arms hold her tight, to listen to the quiet _thud_ of his heartbeat and remind herself that he was hers.

Sort of hers. He had married her, at least.

 _Don't think about that right now,_ she told herself. _He's going to love you, someday._ And these were the stolen moments when she liked to pretend that he already did.

Cora snuggled closer, savoring his warmth. Yorkshire nights were chilly, even in the late spring— _especially_ in the late spring, when it was still freezing cold outside but these infernal English pointed to the calendar and insisted that fires ought not to be laid in May—and it was so much more pleasant to draw heat from Robert than from the quilts and blankets she'd had her maid pile high on her bed.

And then—oh, and then!—she felt Robert slowly run his hand through her hair. She was glad he was not in a position to see her face, for she could feel her cheeks nearly splitting in two from her smile.

 _I do love you,_ she wanted to say. _You're wonderful and handsome and kind and strong and…_ She could not say any of that, of course, but then a word burst from her lips unbidden.

"You're," she began, not sure how she would end the sentence. Perhaps he hadn't heard.

"Hmm?" He _had_ heard.

Cora could feel her face reddening. "You're…warm," she said quietly, trying to find an adjective that said both nothing and everything.

He rubbed his hand up and down her back, and she closed her eyes, nearly giddy at the sudden affection.

"Have you been cold at night, dearest?"

She wasn't anymore, not really. Not with all the blankets she'd requested. But perhaps he would think he should stay with her, and keep her warm? "A bit, yes."

"You should have said something," he said, his voice kind. "I could have fixed that for you."

Cora's heart climbed into her chest, and for a moment she hardly dared breathe.

"The housemaids could find another quilt for you," Robert went on. "And there's no reason I can't insist on a fire for your room, if you'd like that."

She was even gladder now that he couldn't see her face, for now she was blinking back tears.


	20. It's two sugars, right?

AN: So the Carson wedding episode just aired in the U.S., and I was surprised to see that it doesn't look like anyone's filled in Cora and Robert's conversation before Mary found them both in Cora's room (after Cora rebukes Mrs. Hughes and the other women). I know there wasn't any "terrific fun" going on up there, given that Cora's still dressed in her afternoon clothes, but I felt like the Cobert fandom still needed something to fill the gap. ;-) (My apologies if somebody else has already done this and I just missed it-no plagiarism is intended.)

This is also sort of my attempt at justifying how uncharacteristically sharp Cora was in that scene. I totally blame Mary for the whole debacle-why didn't she get off the couch and give Cora some warning on what she'd find upstairs?

* * *

After giving her a half hour to "calm down," as she'd said she should do, Robert made his way up to Cora's room, rather dreading hearing her report of the afternoon. How he wished she and Isobel would drop this hospital business and let his mother do as she saw fit. His only opinion on the merger was that it could not possibly be beneficial enough to be worth this tension, or the hell Violet Crawley would put them all through if she lost.

He expected to find Cora relaxing on the chaise, her nose in a book or her embroidery in her hands, and was alarmed to find the curtains drawn and her lying in bed, her back to him and her coat draped over her as a blanket.

"Cora?" he called softly, alarmed but afraid to wake her if she were asleep.

"Yes?"

"Are you all right? Are you ill?"

She lifted her head and turned slightly to look at him over her shoulder, her face pale and drawn. "No, I'm fine. I've just got a massive headache." She laid back down with a sigh.

Ah, so the hospital meeting had gone very badly, indeed, he thought as he stepped around to the other side of the bed. "Have you taken anything for it?" he asked, brushing his hand over her hair.

"No," she said, her voice small. "I would have, but I just wanted to lie down."

"Do you want me to get Baxter to—"

"No, that's not necessary…I've got aspirin in the washroom cupboard, and there's a glass in there as well, if you don't mind…?"

"Of course not, sweetheart." He bent and pecked her cheek. "I'll get that for you right away." He wanted it in her as quickly as possible, and if she had aspirin up here, there was no sense in fetching Baxter.

Robert stepped into the washroom, where he found a box of powders in the cabinet. He filled the glass sitting on the sink with cool water and poured a package into it, then brought it to Cora, taking a seat on the edge of the bed at her waist. "Here, drink this."

"Thank you." She raised herself up on her elbow, and he watched as she downed the liquid. "This afternoon really was dreadful," she said, lying back down with a sigh.

"I gathered," he said, giving her a small smile and smoothing his hand over her furrowed brow. It was not warm, he noted with relief—he hadn't been able to be easy at the slightest sign of ill health in Cora since the Spanish flu.

"Darling, why don't I call Baxter and have her get you some ice for your head?" he offered.

"No, I'd rather not…"

"Or a real blanket."

"No, I'm fine."

"Wouldn't you like her to take your hair down?" He could do it himself, had often done it himself, _liked_ doing it himself, but he did not believe he could do it as gently as her maid, without accidentally pulling tangled hair or scraping her with one of the pins.

" _No_. Please don't call Baxter, Robert."

"Cora, is something else wrong?" he asked, finding her resistance to the maid she'd grown so fond of very odd.

She sighed again. "It's only…I may have been a bit… _harsh_ with Mrs. Hughes earlier…and with Anna, and Mrs. Patmore."

"All three of them?" He could not quite imagine Cora being harsh to one servant, much less three.

She dropped her eyes. "Yes, all three of them. It seems Mary may have told them Mrs. Hughes could borrow something of mine for the wedding…but I didn't know, and I came up here meaning to lie down, and I found the three of them… _pawing_ through my clothes! And…oh, I don't know, Robert. It's not that I would have _minded_ lending something, I suppose; it was just…" She shrugged. "No one had even bothered to _ask_ me. I'd had no say in it—and I don't think it _mattered_ that I'd had no say. I don't think it even occurred to them—or to Mary—that I might have any feelings of my own on the subject. Anna kept telling me they had Mary's permission, as though that was supposed to be enough, but…"

"But they didn't have yours."

"But they didn't have mine, no."

And that was the crux of it, he thought. How often did anyone bother to ask Cora about anything, and how rarely had her permission ever been sought? He had sensed over the last year that the passive role she'd held for decades had at last begun to grate, and he sensed that whatever had transpired between her and Mrs. Hughes had not been about Mrs. Hughes at all.

"And you know how they talk to each other downstairs…or at least, I would assume they talk," Cora continued suddenly. "So I can't help but think it's all been repeated to Baxter, or at least their version of it has, and heaven only knows what she thinks of me."

"Baxter's very fond of you." He had never felt that with Cora's last maid, in spite of her own defense of O'Brien, but he was quite sure of it with this one.

"All the same, I'd rather not see her right now. I'd rather not see anyone."

"Shall I go?"

She managed a small smile. "No. You're not 'anyone.'"

"A resounding recommendation if ever there was one," he said, leaning down to kiss her temple. He reached behind her and began to gently knead her neck, feeling the tension there and suspecting it was the source of her headache.

She closed her eyes, moaning softly as she rolled forward slightly, giving him better access. "Oh, that does feel wonderful."

"Do you want to tell me what happened at the hospital?" he asked.

"It's simple enough, really. Your mother's absolutely furious that I had the nerve to go and see the hospital in York this morning and speak to the committee—I'm a traitor, I've betrayed us to the enemy, I _am_ the enemy—and Dr. Clarkson's angry, too, that I've dared to act without his permission when I don't know what I'm doing. I need to be _managed_ , he thinks, because I can't possibly have any opinions, at least not any valid ones—I'm a foolish woman sticking my nose where it doesn't belong. I should be grateful, he thinks, that he's willing to listen to me at all."

He let her rant on, gradually coaxing the knots out of her neck and her shoulders as she recounted the afternoon to him—he had to bite his lip to hold back his laughter when his mother demanded to know if Isobel had been drinking—and he slowly felt her anger fade. He could well imagine how she might have addressed Mrs. Hughes, though, now that he had this context, and he did not envy the housekeeper her unfortunate timing.

"But you were happy with how things went in York this morning?" he asked when she fell silent.

"I was, yes," she said, telling him of her tour and her luncheon and explaining what she'd been told. She cared about this, he could tell—she cared very much, and it gave her great pleasure to share it with him.

"Robert," she eventually said, rolling onto her back to look at him, "do you think Baxter would bring us some tea?"

"Yes, of course, love," he said, relieved at the pinkness that had returned to her cheeks and at the suggestion that she would not continue this impractical avoidance of her lady's maid. "You did miss tea, didn't you?" She nodded, sitting up as he stood to reach for the bell pull.

When Baxter returned with a tray laden with teacups and a teapot and sugar and honey and scones, Cora reached for it but he accepted it instead. "No, go and sit on the chaise while I fix a cup for you," he told her, setting the tray on her nightstand and starting to pour the tea as she did so.

He added a bit of milk, as well as a liberal amount of honey, copying without thought the way he'd seen her mix her tea countless times over the years, and then dropped in two lumps of sugar, as she always did. Feeling her gaze on him, he looked back to see her staring, surprise evident in her eyes.

"It's two sugars, right?" he asked, suddenly not sure he'd done it correctly. But no…the image of her long, slender, pale fingers resting on the tongs as she selected exactly two lumps was burned into his mind.

"Yes, you're right." Her face broke into a smile, and she blushed prettily. "Of course you're right."


	21. It's okay I couldn't sleep anyway

AN: This chapter and the next (which should go up later this week) are both dedicated to the lovely zaibi, who is one of the sweetest fans ever and who has been asking when I would write another one-shot for this series. Then she posted a very cute Cobert pic set on Tumblr that inspired these next two one-shots. Thanks for the inspiration and the encouragement, zaibi! :-)

* * *

 _Oww._ Robert's first thought upon waking, before he even opened his eyes, was how much everything hurt.

"You've had a very straightforward surgery, Lord Grantham," Clarkson had said. "Your recovery shouldn't be difficult."

Clearly, Clarkson had never had part of _his_ stomach removed.

Robert slowly forced his eyes open to glance at the clock on his bedside table. 2:10 a.m. He sighed. He was not strong enough yet to be up and about, but his body had had its fill of lying in bed all the time. He'd been home from the hospital for three days now, and he hadn't slept straight through the night once.

Robert squeezed his eyes shut again, trying to will himself to sleep again, but it was no use. His back. Oh, his _back_. There was an insistent throbbing in the lower third of his spine, and perhaps it might ease if he changed positions…and then in a few more hours, he'd awake to new aches in new places. How had a single surgery aged him twenty years?

He was lying on his left side, and he was not sure he could roll over on his own, not with the state of his stomach muscles, but he was determined to try. He'd deprived Cora of too much sleep already in the last two nights, to say nothing of the nights she'd spent at his side in the hospital. And so he tried to shift in the bed to push himself over onto his back, but the muscles Clarkson had cut through shouted at him to stop, and his lower back clenched painfully.

"Mmpf." He tried to bury his groan into his pillow, but he knew before he had finished the noise that of course Cora would hear it. Of course she would. He had not known her at any other time in their marriage to be a light sleeper, but she'd suddenly developed an ability to sleep with one eye open and sense his every twitch.

Sure enough, he heard her sleepily say, "Darling?"

He grunted in response. Cora's solicitousness made him grumpy, and he did not understand why, for there was nothing in the world that was more soothing to him. His irritability irritated him, yet he could not seem to stop snapping at her when he knew she was only trying to help. When she was, indeed, helping very much.

Although perhaps that was it. He did not like to need help, to be unable to see to things himself, for Cora to think him helpless.

"Darling, what's wrong?" she said now, her voice laced with concern.

"Oh for heaven's sake, go back to sleep," he muttered.

But she was not to be put off. "I thought I heard you groaning."

"My back hurts," he said, and he did not bother to hide the anger in his tone…anger at the pain, and anger at his wife for waking and noticing.

Yet as she had for the last week, Cora ignored his tone. "Do you want me to rub it?" she asked sweetly.

"No, no," he said, irritably brushing the suggestion off—he did not know why, because a backrub sounded like the most wonderful thing in the world right now. "Don't _fuss._ It'll be good enough if I can just roll over." He tried to push himself onto his back again but hissed in pain and gave up.

Cora ignored his brush-off just as she had ignored his tone. "Here," she said, her voice sweet but firm, and he felt her hands settle on his back, beginning to make small circles. "Let me rub your back; I know it'll help. Where do you hurt?"

"A bit further down," he said, feeling his irritation fade as he realized the battle had been lost. He could not roll over without her help anyway. "Close to my spine."

"Here?"

He groaned in approval as he felt her fingers move onto his aching lower back. Cora's hands were small and delicate, but their appearance hid their strength, and he closed his eyes as her fists eased the tightness in his muscles, the soreness slowly fading. Robert sighed contentedly.

"Does that feel good?" she asked quietly.

"Heavenly," he murmured. "It feels heavenly."

"See? I told you it would help." There was gentle teasing, not irritation, in her voice.

He let her work for a few more minutes, enjoying the soothing pressure as the pain eased. "That's enough, darling," he said at last, not wanting her hands to hurt. "It's much better. Thank you."

"Good." Her hands stilled, and she pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades. "Do you want me to help you roll over now?"

"Yes," he grunted, annoyed and embarrassed again. "Obviously I can't do it myself!" he snapped. He was a hundred-and-seventy-pound infant that Cora was now tasked with taking care of...and for some reason, his displeasure with that fact came out as displeasure at her. He knew it was unjust, but he was equally powerless to fix it.

Cora did not acknowledge the tartness of his reply. The mattress shifted as she sat up, and he felt her arms slide firmly around him. "Lean back towards me," she instructed calmly, and he did so. "Easy, now," she murmured as she helped him turn, Robert groaning loudly at the movement. "Easy."

At last it was over, and he lay on his back, panting, his hand going to his stitched-up stomach and his eyes closed as he watched stars circle behind his closed lids. He always forgot how painful turning was.

There was the soothing sensation of Cora's fingers stroking his brow. "Shh," she murmured. "You're all right. But you couldn't have done that on your own, darling, and please don't try. It's all right to ask for help." He grunted. "It _is_ ," she insisted. "That's what marriage is...for the help and comfort that one ought to have of the other," she went on, quoting the English wedding ceremony.

He ignored her, in no mood for a treatise on the merits of marriage.

Then the mattress shifted again as she got out of bed.

"Where are you going?" he asked grumpily, opening his eyes to see her making her way around the bed. "You don't need to get up."

"Yes, I do. You need something for your stomach."

"Cora, I don't _need_ anything." He was cranky again, and he knew it was unkind, but he couldn't seem to stop. "I need _you_ to leave me be."

She ignored him and continued into the washroom, where he heard the water running. Soon, she returned clutching a hot water bottle, which she carefully settled onto his stomach, near to where they both knew the stitches were.

"There," she said softly. "That should help with your muscles."

And then she sat down on the bed at his waist, smiling affectionately and slipping a hand onto his abdomen. Ever so lightly, her fingers began to rub, tracing gentle patterns where the hot water bottle wasn't, distracting him from the pain in his belly and coaxing him to relax.

At close range, his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see how drawn her face was, how dark the circles under her own eyes. "I'm sorry I woke you," he said, guilty for the hundredth time at the stress he'd put her through.

She shook her head. "It's okay; I couldn't sleep anyway." He knew that was a lie—from the deep breathing he'd heard before he'd awakened her, and the groggy way she'd spoke at first, he knew she'd been in a _sound_ sleep. But he loved her for her lie and did not argue.

His eyes were beginning to droop, the heat on his belly and Cora's gentle touch soothing him into sleep. But first…

"Darling, I'm sorry I keep snapping at you," he whispered. "I'm sorry I'm so difficult."

She laughed softly. "I don't mind; I know you don't feel well. You be as difficult as you like." She leaned down to brush a kiss to his forehead. "I'm just so glad you're going to be all right; I don't care how cranky you are, my dearest."

All this, from the exhausted woman he woke in the middle of the night so she could give him massages while he chewed on her. "You're an angel," he said simply.

Cora laughed again. "I can tell you're still medicated. That's not my Englishman talking."

He wanted to argue, but all he could do was yawn, and he felt sleep coming quickly. "Cora, you know…you know that I…"

"Yes, darling, I know." She leaned over again and laid a soft kiss on his lips, then replaced her own lips with a single finger against his. "But shh. Sleep now."

* * *

AN: My headcanon is definitely that our Donk is a terrible patient, as well as very cranky when he doesn't feel well. And my other headcanon is that Cora just smiles and puts up with his crap. Because while he maybe be a big baby, he's also _her_ baby.


	22. One more chapter

AN: Credit again to dear zaibi for the inspiration! Although it was certainly not her idea to make this so sad - that was me; please don't hate me for it.

* * *

 **1940**

"Wentworth saw her, and instantly rising, said, with studied politeness, 'I beg your pardon, madam, this is your seat,'" Robert read, "and though she immediately drew back with a decided negative, he was not to be induced to sit down again."

Robert glanced down at Cora, who was tucked into his arms, her head on his shoulder as one of his hands gently played with her curls. Her eyelids were beginning to droop, and that, combined with the paragraph he was in the midst of, led him to lay a light kiss on the top of her head. He was reading her _Persuasion_ , her favorite of Jane Austen's novels, and while he could see why Cora loved it, it was an uncomfortable book for him, for the story centered on the grief of a young woman who desperately loved a man who treated her with nothing more than polite indifference.

"Why do you like this?" he'd asked her years ago, incredulous that she should enjoy a novel that so poignantly captured one of the most difficult periods of her own life.

"Because he falls in love with her in the end, and he tells her how much," she'd said immediately. "And then that's all that matters."

As it had been for the two of them.

Cora gave a contented, tired sigh at his kiss, and he concluded that this chapter, which was nearly done, ought to be their last for the night.

Cora had been home from the hospital for many weeks now, time enough to be recovered, or at least much more recovered than she appeared to be. "I hope we've got it all," Clarkson had said when he'd finished the surgery. "But only time will tell, my lord."

And time was now telling, Robert suspected, that they had, indeed, not gotten it all, for Cora seemed just as sick and weak as she had ever been. Although he knew he would make the same choice over again—he'd agree to anything, if only it meant that Cora might live—he was now wishing he hadn't let Clarkson go ahead with the operation. For it had been so painful for her, physically and emotionally, and, although she did not complain, he knew from her frequent winces that she still felt the pull in her cut chest muscles every time she moved.

She'd cried for days in the beginning, telling him she did not see how he could still love her or find her beautiful, now that her chest was so hopelessly disfigured, now that she was, as she put it, "not even fully a woman anymore." It had broken his heart each time, and he'd desperately sought to reassure her, with kisses and caresses again and again, that there was no power on earth that could make him stop loving her, that he loved her more now than he ever had, that it was her heart and not her body that had won his love, and that he still thought her the most divine creature he had ever laid eyes on. Every word of it was true—a small smile from her sickbed was still enough to take his breath away.

He'd thought she'd recovered from this worry by the time he brought her home, but then he'd come in to help Phyllis—as they now called the former maid who had returned to help nurse Cora—change her dressings one morning.

"I'm sorry," Cora had whispered, tears filling her eyes as she watched him survey the mess of stitches where her breasts had been. "I'm sorry it's so disgusting."

"Nothing," he'd said fiercely, "about you could ever disgust me." He'd paused in his task to kiss her firmly and passionately, an action he'd then taken to doing every time he changed her bandages. It had made the job seem almost romantic to them both, but how he wished now that he'd never put her through any of it at all.

Pulling himself back to the present, Robert focused on the chapter's last lines. "Anne did not wish for more of such looks and speeches," he read. "His cold politeness, his ceremonious grace, were worse than anything."

He gave Cora another light kiss and then closed the book. "I think that's enough for tonight, sweetheart."

"One more chapter," she said, in that breathy, weak voice he could not quite get used to. "Please?"

"You need your sleep, darling." _As though it made any difference. As though rest might make her better._

"I'm getting stronger," she told him, in a voice that was anything but.

It was a sentiment that stabbed him in the heart each time she said it, but it seemed important to her that he play along with this fantasy, although he was not sure whether it was meant to be for her benefit or for his.

"Of course you are," he lied. "No doubt you'll be up and about in plenty of time for Sybbie's wedding this summer." Robert closed his eyes, feeling the familiar burning in the bridge of his nose and determined to hold back his tears at his own words. Their beloved granddaughter's upcoming nuptials had given Cora the strength to get thus far, but he doubted her excitement for the wedding could sustain her until June. It certainly wasn't going to get her out of bed.

"I'm going to walk down the aisle that day, Robert," Cora said, her thin voice firm. "I won't let her down."

"Of course you won't, my dearest," he said, fighting a hard battle to hold his own voice steady. He kissed her again. "Of course you won't."

Cora had once promised a five-year-old Sybbie, who had been troubled after seeing her aunt Edith's wedding, that she would stand in the place of the mother of the bride on Sybbie's own wedding day, and she was determined to keep her word. Privately, Robert thought Cora would be lucky to live to see the bride in her dress before the ceremony, much less to be able to go to the church.

But he would not think of that now—Robert had told himself countless times that he must not waste the days he had left with Cora grieving for a loss that had not yet come.

"But tonight, you are very tired," he said, forcing himself to return to the present, "and if I read any more, you'll doze off on me before I can finish another chapter for you." He gently caressed her cheek.

"I don't mind that; I know how this ends. He tells her he loves her."

He could hear a smile in her voice, and he rested his lips against her forehead. "Yes," he breathed, not sure whether he meant the book's Captain Wentworth or himself. "He does. He's loved her all along." He slowly rubbed his hand up and down her back, trying to rejoice that he had Cora in his arms and not think of how terribly thin she had become.

"I just like to listen to your voice," she went on. "I want to fall asleep to it. So please keep reading, and keep holding me."

 _Keep holding me._ Robert had learned early in his marriage that Cora was far better at being sick than he was, and illness and pain gave her none of the tetchiness or irascibility they gave him. Rather, they made her seem even sweeter, because all she ever wanted when she did not feel well was for him to hold her.

Usually, it was a wish that he was happy to grant. He had always been glad that it was so easy for him to comfort her, and he was never averse to having his wife in his arms—indeed, it was one of his favorite things in the world. But in recent months, holding Cora had brought him just as much pain as it had pleasure, for it reminded him how little he could do for her. This was not a headache he might kiss away, or a sore back he might rub better, or a heavy cold whose discomfort he might ease by snuggling her close. This was _cancer_ —the dreaded word had never passed his or Cora's own lips, but it had rung constantly in his head since Clarkson had first whispered it—and his arms were utterly useless against it.

Yet they were all Cora seemed to want. The sicker she grew, the more she wanted him, and now he could barely enter her room without her asking him to lie down and hold her. He always obliged, trying to ignore the bittersweet ache it caused in his own heart.

"Of course I'll keep holding you, my darling," he said, giving her another kiss and then taking up _Persuasion_ again. "Of course I'll keep holding you."

* * *

AN: I'm so sorry for how upsetting that probably was! I don't usually write stuff where one of them dies/is dying, but I had this in my head and couldn't get rid of it. Also, I don't know WHY I wrote that about Sybbie's wedding—I'm a terrible person, I guess. It's totally my headcanon that that's what Sybbie wants at her wedding, but it is NOT my headcanon that Cora dies before she's married. So let's not think about that anymore.

Also, this is meant to be pretty accurate about how cancer would have been treated in Robert and Cora's era. It wasn't that doctors couldn't do _anything_ —they could operate, but without radiation or chemo, if they didn't get it all (and often they didn't), you were going to die anyway.


	23. Take my seat

AN: Decided to try my hand at another modern AU for this series. :-) (Don't worry; To See Wonderful Things will still go up on time tomorrow. I've just been inspired quite a lot these last few days!)

* * *

Robert forced himself to focus on the screen in front of him. He'd been skeptical when his sister had presented a Kindle as his going-away present, thinking it far too modern for his taste—although he was a young man, Robert had never fancied himself much a fan of technology—but he'd been surprised to discover how much he liked it. It was certainly convenient for travel, allowing him to relocate temporarily to New York for an extended work assignment without having to haul boxes of books with him. And it was also convenient to slip into his pocket each day, a light piece of plastic weighing far less than most books, allowing him to occupy himself anywhere.

Although perhaps not on the subway, not while he was gripping the pole over his head and endeavoring not to tumble into the lap of a seated passenger. He'd read the same sentence five times, too distracted by the motion of the train and the pulsing mass of humanity around him to make sense of the words. Frustrated, Robert shoved his Kindle into his coat pocket. He was beginning to hate New York.

Yes, London's Tube was crowded at 5:15 on a Friday, too, but somehow it had never seemed quite this bad. Perhaps it was the volume of these Americans—the woman next to him was positively shouting into his ear as she tried to converse with her friend—or the awful way they mangled the English language. Or perhaps it was the pushing and the shoving and the elbows that kept catching him in the ribs, the bags that kept slamming into him. Did no one say excuse me in this country?

The car slowed, preparing for its next stop, and Robert braced himself, dreading the influx of new passengers. Yes, people got off at each stop, but even more seemed to get on, to the point that surely, the train would grind to a halt, unable to drag their collective weight any further. That was very much how the lower half of his body was beginning to feel. He'd walked miles today, he suspected, dragged on and off the wretched subway by his new co-workers to meetings that of course were never in his own building.

Oh, but who was gathering his things, wrapping his scarf around him, getting ready to stand? The man seated just to his right! _He could have a seat!_

"This is 8th Street, NYU," said a disembodied voice. When the other man stood, Robert lunged for his vacated spot, beating the passengers on both sides of him to it. He'd seen this happen on the subway plenty of times in the two weeks he'd been here, and at first he'd been appalled—this every-man-for-himself, vulture-like behavior was _not_ how it was done in London.

 _I'm one of_ them _now,_ he thought, rather disgusted with himself. But the feeling didn't last more than a second, so glad was he to be off his feet.

Twice as many New Yorkers as had just gotten off poured through the doors, jamming themselves into the tiniest cracks between other commuters, but Robert smiled to himself. Let them all force their way on. _He_ had a seat.

"Please watch the closing doors," the voice said again. "This is an N line train, toward Astoria Ditmars. The next stop is 14th Street, Union Square. Transfers available to the L, 4, 5, and 6 lines."

The train lurched forward again, but not all of the commuters had settled into position, and thus there was an intensified grumbling as everyone tried to work their way toward a pole without falling over. No matter. _He_ had a seat.

"Watch where you're pointing that thing!" he heard someone snarl, and Robert looked around for the source of the words. He would not deny that there could be something very entertaining in watching these New Yorkers snap at each other.

The complaint had issued from a portly, middle-aged man in a business suit toward a pretty young woman in a stylish-a-few-years-ago coat that must have covered a skirt or a dress, for her legs were bare except for dark tights, finishing in little high-heeled boots. She was carrying…well, everything. A bulging messenger bag was strapped over her shoulder, and she was hunched slightly, as though afraid it would slip off. Her right arm was struggling to hug four long, plastic tubes to her chest, and in her left hand she was grasping the edge of what appeared to be a large oil painting. Carrying the latter was clearly meant to be a two-handed job, and Robert guessed that it was the offending object which had poked the man next to her. Why on earth would someone who could afford to buy artwork attempt to carry it home on the crowded Metro, rather than hailing a cab?

"Oh, I _am_ sorry, sir," the young woman said, her voice strained. It was a lovely voice, Robert could not help but notice—an American accent, yes, but still soft, almost velvety, in spite of the stress it seemed to hold.

The man grunted in reply, and the girl attempted to edge away from him, trying to reposition the painting so as not to jab anyone else with its sharp corners. She was, Robert noticed, limping, and he realized that when she'd been still, she'd had all her weight on her left leg.

Someone ought to let her sit down. Not him, of course—she was not directly in front of him, and there were other occupied seats closer to her. Surely someone would get up, wouldn't they? He watched the seated passengers expectantly, but no one so much as twitched.

 _Not your problem, mate,_ he told himself, trying to ignore the squirming guilt in this stomach. _There are multiple seats between you and her. You shouldn't have to give her yours._

The car was slowing again and lurched to a stop—"This is 14th Street, Union Square"—and he saw the girl with the painting wince as the motion forced her to shift weight onto her right leg. Maybe someone near her would get off, and she could take one of their seats…but no one was moving.

"Excuse me," he said as the door opened. "Excuse me." But she either did not hear him or did not recognize that he was speaking to her, and she did not glance his way.

He stretched his arm across several other passengers—none of whom looked up from their phones—to touch her arm. "Excuse me, ma'am?"

Her head jerked up in his direction. "Ma'am?" she snapped. "How old do I _look_?"

Robert cringed. "Not old! Not old, sorry. I only…"

She sighed, regret coloring her face. "I'm sorry; it's been a long day. What is it?"

"Would you like to take my seat?"

"Oh!" She blushed deeply. "How kind of you—yes, yes, I would, if you don't mind."

He did mind, but he minded worse sitting while she stood. She managed to squeeze past the passengers between them, dragging her painting and her tubes and her bag with her, and she slid into his seat as he vacated it, closing her eyes for a second in relief.

"Thank you," she said, opening them and smiling up at him. She had a sweet, round face, and her smile made pretty dimples around her nose, raising her high cheekbones. He felt slightly weak at having this smile directed at him. "I turned my ankle this morning trying to step over my cat," she explained.

"And did you manage to step over her?" he asked. He smiled back down at her hesitantly, suddenly irrationally afraid he could have lettuce, or some other leftover of lunch, in his teeth.

"I did," she said, laughing softly. "And I got a hiss and a dark glare for my trouble."

Of course she had. Robert had never much liked cats.

"I thought I might take a cab today to cut my walking," she went on, "but budgets, y'know?" He nodded, but he didn't, quite. The heir to an earldom who had stepped right out of Oxford into a lucrative finance job, he could not imagine not springing for a cab if it hurt him to walk.

He glanced down at the painting, which was now resting on the floor in front of her, learning against her legs. It depicted a cathedral surrounded by forest of autumn leaves, in an almost impressionistic style. "That's very pretty," he remarked after a moment, wanting to kick himself for the dullness of his conversation. Why could he not think of anything intelligent to say?

The girl blushed again, giving him a shy smile, and it occurred to him that perhaps she was the artist and not the purchaser. "Do you like it?" she asked. "My professor told me it was terrible."

"It's not," he said, feeling suddenly protective. "Are you a student?" He'd thought her near his own age—several years past university.

"Yes, I'm in grad school. I'm doing an MFA in studio art at NYU."

Of course. No wonder she had no money. The lightbulb clicked on in his head as he recalled that she'd gotten on at the New York University stop. The tubes must hold paintings, too, he realized—watercolors, perhaps.

"Somewhere you've traveled in Europe?" he asked after a pause, nodding at the canvas.

"No, that's here in New York, actually—the Cloisters."

 _"Here?"_ A medieval cathedral in this modern urban jungle?

She smiled again. "Surprising, isn't it? It's quite far uptown—almost to the tip of Manhattan. And it doesn't feel like New York at all, because it's in the most beautiful park overlooking the Hudson. It's an art museum—medieval art, mostly, and the building's a mix of bits of old cathedrals and castles that were all shipped over from Europe and reassembled here. It's quite magical, really—I love it up there."

It _sounded_ magical, and he was suddenly hungry to be there with her.

"But _you're_ from Europe, too," she went on, her eyes twinkling. "Where in England are you from?"

"London, recently. But I grew up in Yorkshire."

"I've been to London," she told him, with another pretty smile. "One of those American tourists constantly overrunning your city."

She could overrun whatever she wanted to, as far as he was concerned.

"Where are you from?" he asked, suspecting the answer was not New York.

"Cincinnati…Ohio," she amended, when she saw his blank expression. "The Midwest. I only moved here a few months ago for my program."

"Approaching Times Square, 42nd Street," the announcing voice said as the train began to slow again. Times Square already? He hadn't noticed the last few stops, clearly. "Transfers available to the S, 1, 2, 3, and 7 lines."

The girl was gathering up her things, and he realized with a sinking feeling that she was preparing to go. "Is this your stop?" he asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

"Not entirely." She smiled ruefully. "I transfer to the 1 here, and then I've got another thirteen stops, although I doubt I'll find anyone as kind as you who lets me sit down."

And then, of course, she would have to hike to her apartment, wherever it was she lived. _This isn't your problem,_ he told himself again. _She can walk and stand; it's a sore ankle, not a broken leg._

But then she stood, and Robert watched her grimace as her ankle took her weight again, and he felt an odd tightening in his chest. He reached for his wallet and pulled out one of the American bills labelled _20_ , the one with the guy with the wild hair on it. But was twenty dollars enough? He was still struggling with the exchange rate, but he knew that thirteen stops implied some distance. He took out a second twenty.

"Here" he said, offering her the money. "Take a cab, please."

She stared at it. "Oh, I couldn't! I—you shouldn't, really—"

"Please," he said. On impulse, he took her hand and closed her fingers around the bills. "I'll worry, otherwise."

"It's—it's too much, too much for a single cab ride—"

"Then keep the change, and take a cab tomorrow, too. Or use it to have your dinner delivered."

She tried to pass the money back, but he pushed her hand away. "I…thank you," she said softly, stunned and flustered. "Thank you very much. This…this is so very kind. I won't forget it."

"Times Square, 42nd Street," the voice announced as the doors swung open.

"Thank you," she murmured again, touching his arm lightly as she turned to go.

"Wait! What's your name?" he blurted out, suddenly realizing he had not gotten this crucial piece of information and that he had no way to see her again. And oh, how desperately he wanted to see her again.

She froze, something like fear in her eyes, and he realized he'd scared her, handing her a wad of cash and then demanding her name, as though he wanted something from her. He cursed himself for not asking earlier—he certainly could not get her number _now_. He would still see her again, he told himself, trying to quell his panic at her departure. It didn't matter how many days he had to spend strolling the streets around NYU, hoping to happen upon her.

"Cora," she said hesitantly, after an eternal second. "My name's Cora."

"I'm Robert," he replied. "Robert Crawley."

She nodded, giving him another of those perfect smiles when he didn't press her for more. "Thank you, Robert. Have a good weekend."

"You too," he said as she stepped awkwardly off the train and the doors closed behind her, _"Cora."_

He turned the name over and over again in his mind as he took his seat back, the syllables swishing together like light gold necklaces. Cora, Cora, _Cora_.

* * *

AN: The Cloisters is a real museum, and it's awesome—probably one of my top five favorite museums in the world. Whether you're an art lover or not (and I'm not really; I just love the unique building), you should go if you're ever in New York. It's a bit off the main tourist route, but it's worth the trip. As Cora says, it's absolutely magical.


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